Snow, Sea Ice, and Sub Ice Platelet Layer Measurements of Landfast Sea Ice in McMurdo Sound

A semi-autonomous sea ice monitoring station (SIMS) was deployed to record ice temperature profiles and snow depths throughout the winter to late spring portion of the sea ice cover's growth season. These data were used to quantify the factors that govern the rate at which the sea ice grows. These factors include the local air temperature, vertical temperature gradient in the sea ice, the thickness of the overlying snow cover and the properties of the water column at the ice / water interface. The ice temperature profiles were recorded by a custom-built temperature probe designed by the University of Otago. The Otago thermistor probe consisted of twenty thermistors contained within a ~ 2.5 m long, 10 mm diameter stainless steel tube. The spacing of the thermistors in the probe was variable. This dataset provides information on the growth of the landfast sea ice and how much of this growth was due to heat loss to the atmosphere vs heat loss to the ocean. Locations: lat:-75.275700, lon:164.067300 (2022/23) Sea ice salinity and fabric cores were collected to understand sea ice growth rates, and indicate the different types of landfast sea ice (e.g. columnar versus incorporated platelet) and to determine their relative vertical positions with the sea ice cover. Sea ice, sub ice platelet layer, snow and freeboard measurements were used to validate ice thicknesses determined by analysing the sea ice temperature profiles collected by the SIMS. Snow depths were measured with a Campbell Scientific ultrasonic sensor (SR50). VIEW DATA: https://seaice.otago.ac.nz/ice-temp-graph/contour/