Submicron non-refractory aerosol composition measured by SP-AMS during expedition ARTofMELT, Arctic Ocean, 2023
Diego Fellin, Fredrik Mattsson, Liine Heikkinen, Claudia Mohr, Stefania Gilardoni, Paul Zieger
Submicron non-refractory aerosol mass concentrations of organics, sulphate, nitrate, ammonium, and chloride measured by a Soot-Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (SP-AMS) are provided at native ~1-minute resolution and as hourly clean-air averages. The dataset includes collection efficiency-corrected concentrations, ship exhaust pollution flags, cloud/fog inlet status, and ship position.
Aerosol chemical composition in the High Arctic during the onset of sea ice melt is poorly constrained, limiting our understanding of aerosol sources, aerosol–cloud interactions, and climate feedbacks in a rapidly changing region. These data support source apportionment studies, aerosol–cloud interaction analyses, and evaluation of atmospheric chemistry models in the Arctic spring.
Data were collected aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden in the Fram Strait region between Greenland and Svalbard from 7 May to 14 June 2023 during the ARTofMELT (Atmospheric Rivers and the onset of sea ice MELT) expedition. The SP-AMS was deployed in the ACES container laboratory, sampling through a whole-air inlet and, during cloud and fog events, through a Ground-based Counterflow Virtual Impactor (GCVI); high-resolution mass spectra were processed in Igor Pro v 6.37 using SQUIRREL and PIKA.
AtmosphereAerosolsArcticArctic OceanAerosol mass spectrometryNon-refractory aerosol compositionOrganic aerosolSulphateArctic aerosolSea ice meltAerosol-cloud interactionsARTofMELT 2023 expeditionARTofMELTIcebreaker Oden
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References
Aiken AC, et al. (2008) O/C and OM/OC ratios of primary, secondary, and ambient organic aerosols with high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometry. Environmental Science & Technology 42:4478–4485. https://doi.org/10.1021/es703009q
Drewnick F, et al. (2009) Aerosol quantification with the Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometer: detection limits and ionizer background effect. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 2:33–46. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2-33-2009
Middlebrook AM, et al. (2012) Evaluation of composition-dependent collection efficiencies for the Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer using field data. Aerosol Science and Technology 46:258–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2011.620041
Tjernström M, Zieger P, et al. (2025) ARTofMELT 2023 – Expedition report. Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, ISBN 978-91-519-5134-8. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:polar:diva-9183
Data description
The dataset is provided as two semicolon-separated csv files and one Excel workbook xlsx, accompanied by one README.txt file.
AoM2023_SPAMS_submicron_composition_1min.csv
Level 1, native ~1-minute resolution (~5 MB)
53,641 rows on a continuous minute grid (7 May 2023 18:00 – 14 Jun 2023 00:00 UTC).
Contains CE-corrected mass concentrations of organics, sulphate, nitrate, ammonium, and non-refractory chloride (ug m-3), CVI inlet status and fractional CVI coverage, per-minute pollution flag and fractional pollution indicator, and ship latitude/longitude. Rows without AMS data contain NA for species columns.
datetime_UTCTimestamp (ISO 8601, UTC), floored to the minutelatitudeShip latitude (decimal degrees N)longitudeShip longitude (decimal degrees E)Org_ug_m3Organic aerosol mass concentration (ug m-3)SO4_ug_m3Sulphate mass concentration (ug m-3)NO3_ug_m3Nitrate mass concentration (ug m-3)NH4_ug_m3Ammonium mass concentration (ug m-3)Chl_ug_m3Non-refractory chloride mass concentration (ug m-3)CVI_status1 = CVI active (cloud residuals), 0 = total inletcvi_fracFraction of the minute during which CVI was active (0-1), derived from second-level CVI status data. NA where CVI data are unavailable.pollution_fracFraction of 10-second intervals within the minute flagged as influenced by ship exhaust (0-1)pollution_flagBinary flag: 1 if any 10-second interval within the minute was flagged as polluted, 0 otherwise
AoM2023_SPAMS_submicron_composition_1hour.csv
Level 2, 1-hour averages (~100 KB)
1-hour averages computed from clean, laser-OFF minutes only (pollution_flag = 0; values <= 0 excluded).
895 rows on a continuous hourly grid.
Includes n_minutes_ams_laser_off (number of clean laser-OFF minutes used per average) and pollution_frac to allow users to assess data quality.
datetime_UTCTimestamp (ISO 8601, UTC), start of the hourlatitudeMean ship latitude during the hourlongitudeMean ship longitude during the hourOrg_ug_m3Organic aerosol (ug m-3), averaged from clean laser-OFF minutes only (values <= 0 excluded)SO4_ug_m3Sulphate (ug m-3), clean laser-OFF averageNO3_ug_m3Nitrate (ug m-3), clean laser-OFF averageNH4_ug_m3Ammonium (ug m-3), clean laser-OFF averageChl_ug_m3Non-refractory chloride (ug m-3), clean laser-OFF averageCVI_statusMajority CVI status for the hour (1 if CVI active for >50% of minutes)cvi_fracFraction of minutes within the hour during which CVI was active (0-1), derived from per-minute CVI_status flags. NA where CVI data are unavailable.n_minutes_ams_laser_offNumber of clean, laser-OFF minutes with valid AMS data used to compute the hourly average. Zero or NA indicates no usable data for that hour.pollution_fracFraction of AMS minutes within the hour flagged as polluted (0-1), computed over minutes where the flag was available.
AoM2023_SPAMS_submicron_composition.xlsx
Excel workbook containing both levels on separate sheets
README.txt
Full description of all columns, data processing steps, detection limits, and references.
Comments
Species concentrations (Org, SO4, NO3, NH4, Chl) are derived from laser-OFF (beam-closed) AMS measurement periods only. The intracavity Nd:YAG laser was operated in an alternating ON/OFF cycle of 30 minutes per phase.
Level 1 (1-minute) data retain all values including negatives, which reflect instrument noise around zero.
Level 2 (1-hour) averages are computed from clean minutes only (pollution_flag = 0) and exclude values <= 0, consistent with the original Igor Pro processing.
Ship exhaust contamination was identified using a 10-second-resolution pollution flag (Julia Kojoj, Stockholm University).
CVI_status = 1 indicates periods when the SP-AMS sampled cloud residuals through the GCVI rather than total ambient aerosol; users studying ambient aerosol should filter these out.
Collection efficiency CE = 0.9237 was determined by Deming regression (forced through origin) of SP-AMS sulphate against co-located low-pressure impactor ion chromatography sulphate, excluding sample LPI_ambient_01 (a poor-fit outlier: R^2 = 0.53 with it included vs 0.84 without).
Update note (2026-08-31): all four data files were replaced. The initial submission (version 1) used an earlier collection-efficiency estimate (CE = 1.0224, from a regression that inadvertently included LPI_ambient_01) and a pre-reprocessing AMS composition file. This revision uses the current campaign-standard CE (0.9237) and the reprocessed AMS data, consistent with the composition figures in the associated manuscript. Concentrations in this version are correspondingly higher than in the initial submission.
The expedition
Data were collected during the ARTofMELT 2023 expedition on board the Swedish icebreaker Oden, which was organized by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat from 8 May through 14 June, 2023.
Version history
Version 2
Replaced all four data files. Corrected collection efficiency (CE = 0.9237, was 1.0224) and updated to the current AMS reprocessing line. See Comments for full detail.
Version 1
Initial release.
Project
This work is part of the ARTofMELT (Atmospheric rivers and the onset of Arctic melt) project. The ARTofMELT expedition was supported and organised by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) on the Swedish research icebreaker Oden in spring 2023 under the SWEDARCTIC program. This project has received funding from the European Union''s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101003826 via project CRiceS (Climate Relevant interactions and feedbacks: the key role of sea ice and Snow in the polar and global climate system) and the European Research Council (Consolidator grant INTEGRATE No 865799).
Publisher
Bolin Centre Database
License
Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0
First name
Diego
Last name or organisation
Fellin
Email address
Address
Institute of Polar Sciences; National Research Council
Postal code
20126
City
Milan
Country
Italy
GCMD science keyword
Earth science > Atmosphere > Aerosols > Aerosol particle properties
GCMD location
Ocean > Arctic Ocean > Fram Strait
Dataset language
English
Begin date
2023-05-07
End date
2023-06-14