Abstract:
Particle number flux of airborne snow particles was measured near-continuously at 1-min resolution above the sea ice surface from October 2019 to July 2020 during the year-round MOSAiC expedition. Sensors where mounted at 0.08 m and 10 m on the mast in MetCity on the MOSAiC ice floe drifting during the measurement period within an area of 79.2 N to 88.6 N and 2.7 W to 133.6 E.
The SPC measurements were part of the BAS measurement suite during MOSAiC to quantify sea salt aerosol production from blowing snow above sea ice and potential impacts on clouds and climate. Instrument and data quality checks during the year-round campaign were carried out by BAS scientists and the MOSAiC ATMOS team.
Funding was provided by UKRI Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project "Sea Salt Aerosol above Arctic Sea Ice - sources, processes and climate impacts" (SSAASI-CLIM) grant NE/S00257X/1.
The project was part of the international Multi-disciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) with the tag MOSAiC20192020.
Keywords:
Arctic blowing snow, MOSAiC, drifting snow, snow particle drift density, snow particle number flux
Frey, M., Wagner, D., Kirchgaessner, A., Uttal, T., & Shupe, M. (2023). Atmospheric snow particle flux in the Central Arctic during MOSAiC 2019-20 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/7d8e401b-2c75-4ee4-a753-c24b7e91e6e9
| Access Constraints: | Please cite the reference papers when using the data |
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| Use Constraints: | Data supplied under Open Government Licence v3.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. |
| Creation Date: | 2023-04-25 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
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| Parameters: |
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| Personnel: | |
| Name | UK PDC |
| Role(s) | Metadata Author |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Markus Frey |
| Role(s) | Technical Contact, Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | David Wagner |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF |
| Name | Amelie Kirchgaessner |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Taneil Uttal |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | NOAA Physical Science Laboratory |
| Name | Matthew Shupe |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | NOAA Physical Science Laboratory |
| Parent Dataset: | N/A |
| Reference: | Frey, M., Norris, S., Brooks, I., Anderson, P., Nishimura, K., Yang, X., et al. (2020). First direct observation of sea salt aerosol production from blowing snow above sea ice. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 20, 2549-2578. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2549-2020 (methodology) Shupe, MD et al. (2022). Overview of the MOSAiC expedition: Atmosphere. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00060. (project overview) This data set is a subset of the data collected under the UKRI-NERC project "Sea Salt Aerosol above Arctic Sea Ice - sources, processes and climate impacts" (SSAASI-CLIM) grant NE/S00257X/1. The project was part of the international Multi-disciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) with the tag MOSAiC20192020. Collocated measurements from the meteorological tower in MetCity on the MOSAiC ice floe such as current position and horizontal wind speed are archived elsewhere (Level 2.4 NOAA doi:10.18739/A2K649V1F). |
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| Quality: | The two SPC units (Unit 1104 at 0.08 m; Unit 1206 at 10 m) did run near-continuously from Oct 2019 until the end of Jul 2020, except during power cuts during March to May, and when the ice floe was abandoned for 5 weeks from mid-May 2020. SPC Unit 1104 started recording only from 2 Dec 2019. Calibrations were done for Unit 1104 on 19.06.2019 and for Unit 1206 on 26.09.2012. Unit 1206 showed occasionally malfunctioning: i) spurious small particle increases in the absence of drifting snow or precipitation, and ii) size spectra were clipped at the smaller sizes. In this data version no data were removed. | |
| Lineage: | To measure airborne snow particles Snow Particle Counters (SPC) (SPC-95, Niigata Electric Co., Ltd) were employed manufactured and calibrated in Japan. The open-path SPC has a wind vane to steer into the prevailing wind direction and is equipped with a super-luminescent diode sensor, which acts as a constant light source during the measurement. Once a snow particle enters the beam first the light energy detected by the upwind sensor decreases then that seen by the down-wind sensor. These signals are converted to two successive voltage pulses, which are proportional to particle size. Each signal is classified into one of 64 size classes (30 to 500 μm particle diameter). The SPC measures number flux of snow particles within each size class. Number flux can be converted into number concentration or drift density by dividing by horizontal wind speed from the nearest wind speed sensor on the mast (Level 2.4 NOAA doi:10.18739/A2K649V1F). The project was part of the international Multi-disciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) with the tag MOSAiC20192020. The latitude/longitude indicate the spatial bounds of the MOSAiC ice floe drift during the period covered by the entire dataset (October 2019 to July 2020). |
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| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2019-10-14 |
| End Date | 2020-07-30 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | 79.2 |
| Northernmost | 88.6 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -2.7 |
| Easternmost | 133.6 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | 0.1m amsl |
| Max Altitude | 10m amsl |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Arctic Ocean |
| Detailed Location | N/A |
| Data Collection: | Instrumentation used: Snow Particle Counters SPC-95 (Niigata Electric Co., Ltd) |
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| Distribution: | |
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| Distribution Media | Online Internet (HTTP) |
| Distribution Size | TBC |
| Distribution Format | ASCII |
| Fees | N/A |
| Data Storage: | Daily files for SPC unit 1104 at 0.08 m (194) and SPC unit at 10 m (232) in *.csv format with a total volume of ~131.6 Mb |