" The interference pattern isn't waves," Can we agree to disagree? I've reassessed my take on the prescence of internal waves and perhaps I'm just seeing what I want to see but I've grown more convinced and think they are manifest in all the basins, though I'll leave it to a proffessional to call it. They appear when the ice has built up a head of steam and are then accelerated by more powerful winds, or when powerful winds apply the brakes to an area already moving in concert. The most unambiguous signal of movement in the basins is in Beaufort where there's the most movement of ice. Looking at the central feature
and the underlying bathymetry
again 76/155 why the drop in salinity if it's not warm basal water melting the ice?
I also did another google seach for internal waves, images this link has an interesting interactive
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/the-waves-within-the-waves This ones more technical
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/Mixing.html abstract
"Recent findings demonstrate the sensitivity of Arctic Ocean circulation to background, deep-ocean mixing. Results with a large-scale coupled ice-ocean model [Zhang and Steele, 2007] suggest the appropriate model background mixing for the Arctic Ocean is an order of magnitude lower than for ice-free oceans. Background mixing in the deep ocean is related to internal wave energy, which in ice-covered seas has been observed to be lower than in ice-free oceans, and to change with time and bathymetric conditions [Levine et al., 1985 and 1987; Halle and Pinkel, 2003; Pinkel, 2005]. Present thinking is that internal wave energies and background mixing are reduced in ice-covered seas by, among other things, dissipation of internal wave energy in the surface boundary layer immediately below the ice. Consequently, if the ice cover is reduced due to global warming, we may see a climate feedback that has not been considered before. If the ice cover is reduced, we may see increased internal wave energy, mixing, and heat flux in the deep ocean because less internal wave energy would be lost in the under-ice boundary layer. This would tend to result in increased heat flux to the ice, a positive climate feedback that would melt more ice. The effect could arguably be greatest near the continental slopes and submarine ridges, which are the likely areas of greatest internal wave increase and the paths of warm Atlantic water through the Arctic Basin."
As is this
http://folk.uib.no/ngfif/Reprints/Guthrie_etal_JGR13.pdfabstract "To determine whether deep background mixing has increased with the diminishment of
the Arctic sea ice, we compare recent internal wave energy and mixing observations with
historical measurements. Since 2007, the North Pole Environmental Observatory has
launched expendable current probes (XCPs) as a part of annual airborne hydrographic
surveys in the central Arctic Ocean. Mixing in the upper 500 m is estimated from XCP
shear variance and Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) derived Brunt-V
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frequency. Internal wave energy levels vary by an order of magnitude between surveys,
although all surveys are less energetic and show more vertical modes than typical
midlatitude Garrett-Munk (GM) model spectra. Survey-averaged mixing estimates also vary
by an order of magnitude among recent surveys. Comparisons between modern and
historical data, reanalyzed in identical fashion, reveal no trend evident over the 30 year
period in spite of drastic diminution of the sea ice. Turbulent heat fluxes are consistent with
recent double-diffusive estimates. Both mixing and internal wave energy in the Beaufort
Sea are lower when compared to both the central and eastern Arctic Ocean, and expanding
the analysis to mooring data from the Beaufort Sea reveals little change in that area
compared to historical results from Arctic Internal Wave Experiment. We hypothesize that
internal wave energy remains lowest in the Beaufort Sea in spite of dramatic declines in sea
ice there, because increased stratification amplifies the negative effect of boundary layer
dissipation on internal wave energy."
It's worth taking a look at
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arc_list_beaufortopening.html from the 3rd and following the evolution of the movement on a frame by frame, unless your computer literate and can slow the animation down.