Pancake Ice

Pancake ice is sea ice in the form of rounded plates 30 cm to 3 m across with raised rims, formed when frazil and grease ice are jostled by waves and the colliding cakes round off and build up edges. It is an early stage of development that appears in wave-active water, common in the marginal ice zone and in the rapidly freezing Southern Ocean, where much of the Antarctic pack starts as pancakes. The rims and brine make pancake ice rough and saline, raising its radar and passive-microwave signature. The WMO Sea-Ice Nomenclature (WMO No. 259) lists it under new and young ice forms.