Non-isothermal ice melting and hydrodynamics in waterbodies of varying salinity

Understanding the exact mechanisms driving ice melting and the related convection in high-latitude marine and lake environments remains critical for assessing climate change impacts yet is challenging to examine. Previous laboratory research has focused mostly on investigating isothermal ice melting in both initially quiescent waters and background flows. Yet, the integration of the inside-ice temperature distribution has been so far ignored in experiments. Here, we report laboratory experiments designed to quantify the co-evolution of the non-isothermal ice melting and ambient hydrodynamics as a function of a salinity concentration, which is incremented from 0% to 4%. The ice-water interface evolution is tracked by imaged analysis, whereas the resulting buoyancy-driven flow is examined via particle image velocimetry. In particular, our results will illustrate the sensibility of the solid-liquid water dynamics to salt concentration and progress towards understanding ice-melting in sheltered shallow aquatic environments like nearshore marine regions and proglacial lakes.