On brine entrapment in sea ice

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Sea ice, covering 5 to 7 percent of the Earth's oceans, is a porous medium essential to geophysical and biological systems. Understanding its role requires knowledge of its physical, chemical, and hydrological properties, particularly its microstructure. This monograph explores the evolution of sea ice microstructure and salinity, focusing on cellular spacing at the sea ice-seawater interface. After reviewing observations and existing models, the discussion incorporates modern theories of pattern selection and convection. A novel approach to model the cell spacing selection problem is introduced, based on a macroscopic variant of classical morphological stability theory, which predicts cellular spacing during the unidirectional solidification of saline solutions. The theory is adapted to account for natural solutal convection, particularly when sea ice floats on its own melt. The theoretical framework is applied to analyze permeability and convective stability in the porous bottom fractions of natural sea ice. By combining scalings from morphological stability, convective stability of the porous medium, and turbulent melt convection, realistic predictions of sea ice salinity during the growth season are achieved. The consistency of the theories with observations suggests the potential of using aqueous saline solutions to enhance understanding of interfacial pattern and microstructure evolution during directional solidification