Professor Vernon Squire

Office: Room 116 in the Clocktower Building
Phone: 479-8303
Email: vernon.squire@otago.ac.nz

** Left the Department in 2005 to become the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Division of Sciences. In 2010 appointed as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International). He maintains links with the Department and is still active in research and supervision. **

Research Interests

Current research interests of Professor Squire relate to modelling environmental phenomena, especially processes that occur in the polar regions. A recent focus has been to understand sea-ice in relation to the climates of the Arctic and Southern Oceans, with some effort being put into explaining how ocean waves interact with sea-ice and especially how the ice breaks up. This includes modelling single ice floes, icebergs, heterogeneous and imperfect ice sheets, and research on scattering in random media. The work has been supported by a sequence of grants, including three Marsden Grants and a 5-year grant from the US Office of Naval Research that relates to how ocean waves have contributed to the incredible sea-ice reductions we are experiencing in the Arctic and the apparent sea-ice stability or even growth in the Antarctic. Unusually for a Department of Mathematics and Statistics, theoretical work has been supported by fieldwork in the polar regions. The work is highly collaborative, involving several New Zealand institutions funded under the same overarching grants, and many scientists from organizations abroad - especially the US.

Some Useful Links

• Antarctic Science and Marine Environments of the Southern Oceans
• Collaborative sea-ice research in the Department of Physics at the University of Otago
• Ocean physics in the Department of Marine Science

Associate Editor

Professor Squire is on the editorial boards of two international journals, Cold Regions Science & Technology and the International Journal of Offshore & Polar Engineering. He would be pleased to process manuscripts intended for those journals.

Project/Thesis Possibilities

Professor Squire will supervise applicable projects relating to the physics or oceanography of the polar regions, geophysical/environmental continuum mechanics, engineering-style mathematical modelling, methods-type projects and work that applies mathematics to the Health Sciences. He is also prepared to act as a secondary supervisor in most modern areas of applied mathematics.

Published or in press papers from 2013 onwards

• Bennetts, L. G., O’Farrell, S., Uotila, P. and Squire, V. A. An idealized wave–ice interaction model without subgrid spatial or temporal discretizations. Annals of Glaciology, 56(69), 258-262 (2015).
• Massom, R. A., Scambos, T. A., Bennetts, L. G., Reid, P., Squire, V. A. and Stammerjohn, S. E. Antarctic ice shelf disintegration triggered by sea ice loss and ocean swell. Nature, 558(7710), 383-389 + Methods, doi 10.1038/s41586-018-0212-1 (2018).
• Montiel, F., Bonnefoy, F., Ferrant, P., Bennetts, L. G., Squire, V. A. and Marsault, P. Hydroelastic response of floating elastic disks to regular waves. Part 1: Wave basin experiments. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 723, 604-628 (2013).
• Montiel, F., Bennetts, L. G., Squire, V. A., Bonnefoy, F. and Ferrant, P. Hydroelastic response of floating elastic disks to regular waves. Part 2: Modal analysis. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 723, 629-652 (2013).
• Montiel, F. and Squire, V. A. Modelling wave-induced sea ice break-up in the marginal ice zone. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, 473(2206), 1-25 (2017).
• Montiel, F., Squire, V. A. and Bennetts, L. G. Two dimensional scattering of directional wave spectra by regular and randomly perturbed finite arrays of circular obstructions. SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics, 75(2), 30-651 (2015).
• Montiel, F., Squire, V. A. and Bennetts, L. G. Reflection and transmission of ocean wave spectra by a band of randomly distributed ice floes. Annals of Glaciology, 56(69), 315-322 (2015).
• Montiel, F., Squire, V. A. and Bennetts, L. G. Attenuation and directional spreading of ocean wave spectra in the marginal ice zone. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 790, 492-522 (2016).
• Montiel, F., Squire, V. A., Doble, M. J., Thomson, J. and Wadhams, P. Attenuation and directional spreading of ocean waves during a storm event in the autumn Beaufort Sea marginal ice zone. Journal of Geophysical Research, doi 10.1029/2018JC013763 (2018).
• Mosig, J. E. M., Montiel, F. and Squire, V. A. Comparison of viscoelastic-type models for ocean wave attenuation in ice-covered seas. Journal of Geophysical Research, 120(9), 6072-6090 (2015).
• Mosig, J. E. M., Montiel, F. and Squire, V. A. Water wave scattering from a mass loading ice floe of random length using generalised polynomial chaos. Wave Motion,70, 222-239 (2017).
• Mosig, J. E. M., Montiel, F. and Squire, V. A. On the transport of energy by surface flexural gravity waves. The 32nd International Workshop on Water Waves and Floating Bodies, Dalian, China, 23rd-26th April 2017, Article 39, 4pp (2017).
• Mosig, J. E. M., Montiel, F. and Squire, V. A.. A transport equation for flexural-gravity wave propagation under a sea ice cover of variable thickness. Wave Motion, in press (2020).
• Squire, V. A. A fresh look at how ocean waves and sea ice interact. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series A, 376, 20170342, doi 10.1098/rsta.2017.0342 (2018).
• Squire, V. A. Ocean wave interactions with sea ice: a 2019 reappraisal. Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, in press (2020).
• Squire, V. A. and Montiel, F. Evolution of directional wave spectra in the marginal ice zone: a new model tested with legacy data. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 46(10), 3121-3137 (2016).
• Squire, V. A., Williams, T. D. and Bennetts, L. G. Better operational forecasting for contemporary Arctic via ocean wave integration. International Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering, 23(2), 81-88 (2013).
• Williams, T. D., Bennetts, L. G., Squire, V. A., Dumont, D. and Bertino, L. Wave-ice interactions in the marginal ice zone. Part 1: Theoretical foundations. Ocean Modelling, 71, 81-91 (2013).
• Williams, T. D., Bennetts, L. G., Squire, V. A., Dumont, D. and Bertino, L. Wave-ice interactions in the marginal ice zone. Part 2: Numerical implementation and sensitivity studies along 1D transects of the ocean surface. Ocean Modelling, 71, 92-101 (2013).

Earlier publications arising from conferences co-convened at the University of Otago

For a copy of the following proceedings, available in three volumes, please contact the Department of Physics, University of Otago.

• Squire, V. A. and Langhorne, P. J. (eds.) Ice in the Environment: Proceedings of 16th International Symposium on Ice, 1, International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (2002) 513p, ISBN 1-877139-52-1.
• Squire, V. A. and Langhorne, P. J. (eds.) Ice in the Environment: Proceedings of 16th International Symposium on Ice, 2, International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (2002) 452p, ISBN 1-877139-52-1.
• Squire, V. A. and Langhorne, P. J. (eds.) Ice in the Environment: Proceedings of 16th International Symposium on Ice, 3, International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (2002) 363p, ISBN 1-877139-52-1.

For a copy of the following journal special issue with selected papers from the 2005 International Symposium on Sea-Ice, please contact the International Glaciological Society, Scott Polar Research Institute, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER, UK. Email: igsoc@igsoc.org .

• Langhorne, P. J. and Squire, V. A. (eds.) Annals of Glaciology, 44, (2006) 448p, ISBN 0-946417-39-3.