SIMBA sea-ice drift and snow and ice temperature data from the ARTofMELT expedition, Arctic Ocean, 2023

Bin Cheng, Timo Vihma, Gabin Urbancic

Three thermistor string-based snow and ice mass balance apparatus (SIMBAs) were deployed during the expedition ARTofMELT (Atmospheric Rivers and the Onset of Arctic Melt) in the Fram Strait pack ice during the spring transition, 8 May to 14 June of 2023.

During the melting season, the standard SIMBA (with 4.8 m thermistor chain) deployment may encounter the risk that the borehole remains unfrozen, resulting in SIMBA measuring seawater temperature only. To tackle this challenge, the SIMBA thermistor chain for ARTofMELT expedition was customized. The length of the thermistor chain was reduced to 1.5 m. The sensor spacing is still 2 cm, so the total number of sensors is 72. A separate air temperature sensor was mounted on the chain. The SIMBA thermistor chain was carefully placed so that the thermistor sensors measure the air, snow, and ice temperatures.

The snow dept and ice thickness were measured manually at the time of deployment of each SIMBA. The temporal evolution of snow depth and ice thickness can in principle be estimated with an accuracy of 0.02 m, but this is very challenging in spring/summer conditions when all temperatures are close to each other.

MarineSea iceSea-ice driftSnow and ice temperaturesArcticArctic OceanARTofMELTARTofMELT 2023 expeditionIcebreaker Oden

Name

Version

Citation

References

Jackson K, Wilkinson J, Maksym T, Meldrum D, Beckers J, Haas C, Mackenzie D (2013) A Novel and Low-Cost Sea Ice Mass Balance Buoy. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 30:2676–2688. https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-13-00058.1

Cheng Y, Cheng B, Zheng F, Vihma T, Kontu A, Yang Q, Liao Z (2020) Air/snow, snow/ice and ice/water interfaces detection from high-resolution vertical temperature profiles measured by ice mass-balance buoys on an Arctic lake. Annals of Glaciology 61:309–319. https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2020.51

Data description

Three thermistor string-based snow and ice mass balance apparatuses (SIMBA) were deployed during ARTofMELT expedition in May 2023.

• SIMBA1001(IMEI: 300534063484550)
• SIMBA1002(IMEI: 300534063057440)
• SIMBA1003(IMEI: 300534063682460)

The data are provided in 13 comma-separated values (csv) files. Total size: 696 kB.

SIMBA drift position data files

• FMI1001GPS_final.csv
• MI1002GPS_final.csv
• MI1003GPS_final.csv

Columns

• YYYY year
• MM month
• DD day
• hh hour
• mm minute
• ss second
• LAT GPS position latitude
• LON GPS position longitude
• BaromTemp no use
• BaromPres surface air pressure (mb)

SIMBA environmental temperature files

• FMI1001_ET_final.csv
• FMI1002_ET_final.csv
• FMI1003_ET_P1_final.csv
• FMI1003_ET_P2_final.csv

Note: FMI1003 data are provided in two parts (files) identified by P1 and P2 in their file names. File FMI1003_ET_P2_final.csv has fewer columns, as only the sensors in the air worked in this case.

Columns

• YYYY year
• MM month
• DD day
• hh hour
• mm min
• ss second
• EH1 sensor(1), Temperature (°C)
• EH2 sensor(2), Temperature (°C)
• ...
• EH72 sensor(72), Temperature (°C)
• EH73 sensor(Tair), Temperature (°C)

Columns for FMI1003_ET_P2_final

• YYYY year
• MM month
• DD day
• hh hour
• mm min
• ss second
• EH1 sensor(1), Temperature (°C)
• EH2 sensor(2), Temperature (°C)
• ...
• EH19 sensor(19), Temperature (°C)
• EH20 sensor(Tair), Temperature (°C)

SIMBA heating temperature files

• FMI1001_HT30.csv
• FMI1001_HT120.csv
• FMI1002_HT30.csv
• FMI1002_HT120.csv
• FMI1003_HT30.csv
• FMI1003_HT120.csv

Columns

• YYYY year
• MM month
• DD day
• hh hour
• mm min
• ss second
• H1 sensor(1), Temperature (°C)
• H2 sensor(2), Temperature (°C)
• ...
• H72 sensor(72), Temperature (°C)
• H73 sensor(Tair), Temperature (°C)

For each SIMBA, the HT30/HT120 are paired. When the vertical temperature gradient is large enough, SIMBA_HT data allows to identify interfaces between water, ice, snow and air (Cheng et al. 2020) but the SIMBA_HT files from ARTofMELT have minimal usability.

Initial snow depth and ice thickness

FMI1001

Hice = 170 cm; Hsnow = 38 cm
Sensor 53 was placed at the snow/ice interface
Sensors 38⁠ – 52 were in the snow layer
Sensors 54⁠ – 72 were in the ice layer

FMI1002

Hice = 155 cm; Hsnow = 36 cm
Sensor 55 was placed at the snow/ice interface
Sensor 37 was at the snow surface
Sensors 38 – 55 were in the snow layer
Sensors 56 – 72 were in the ice layer

FMI1003

Hice = 170 cm; Hsnow = 10 cm
Sensor 57 was placed at the snow/ice interface
Sensor 52 was at the snow surface
Sensors 53 – 56 were in the snow layer
Sensors 58 – 72 were in the ice layer

Comments

Three thermistor string-based snow and ice mass balance apparatus (SIMBAs) were deployed during ARTofMELT expedition in May 2023. Temperatures of the snowpack and the upper parts of the ice floes were measured.

The SIMBA was manufactured by the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) (Jackson et al. 2013).

For standard SIMBA apparatus, the length of the SIMBA thermistor chain is 4.8 m. There are 240 thermistor sensors (DS28EA00, accurate to +/- 0.0625 °C) with 0.02 m spacing. Two types of temperatures were measured.

The temperature of air, snow, ice, and water, where SIMBA thermistor sensors were placed, is named as SIMBA_ET.

The temperature reading after each thermistor sensor was heated with an identical power of heating is named SIMBA_HT. The amount of heating was controlled by the duration of heating, often configured as 30 s and 120 s, respectively.

The SIMBA_ET and SIMBA_HT were measured four times per day and once per day, respectively. So FMI100*_HT30 and FMI100*_HT120 (where * = 1, 2, and 3) represent the sensor temperature changes in air, snow, ice, and water after a heating cycle of the 30s and 120s, respectively.

Combined with a SIMBA algorithm (Cheng et al. 2020) and manual analyses, snow depth and ice thickness can be derived from SIMBA_ET and SMMBA_HT observations. Overall, the measurement accuracy was 0.02 m for both the snow depth and ice thickness.

During the melting season, the standard SIMBA (4.8 m thermistor chain) deployment may encounter the risk that the borehole remains unfrozen, resulting in SIMBA measuring seawater temperature only. To tackle this challenge, the SIMBA thermistor chain for ARTofMELT expedition was customized. The length of the thermistor chain was reduced to 1.5 m. The sensor spacing is still 2 cm, so the total number of sensors is 72. A separate air temperature sensor was mounted on the chain. The SIMBA thermistor chain was carefully placed so that the thermistor sensors measure the air, snow, and ice temperature.

Project

ARTofMELT expedition in spring 2023, funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR: 2022-03052). The work of Bin Cheng, Timo Vihma and Gabin Urbancic was supported by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs via the project “Water Cycle, sea ice melt, and their impacts in the Arctic climate system (VKAI)”, contract VN/13987-UM-3.

Publisher

Bolin Centre Database

License

First name

Bin

Last name or organisation

Cheng

Email address

bin.cheng@fmi.fi

Address

Finnish Meteorological Institute; Erik Palménin aukio 1

Postal code

FI-00101

City

Helsinki

Country

Finland

GCMD science keyword

Earth science > Cryosphere > Sea ice > Ice temperature

GCMD location

Ocean > Arctic Ocean

Dataset language

English

Begin date

2023-05-16

End date

2023-06-30

DOI

Time