Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
• Data Files
• Parameters
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information
• Funding

Snowpits were dug at selected locations along the ice survey lines. Vertical profiles of snow temperature, density, grain size, and grain type were measured. Ice and slush layers were also noted. Results from the 22 snowpits examined in 2001 and the 16 snowpits examined in 2002 are summarized.

Related datasets:
ice thickness, ice optics, sea ice, ice properties

The convention is the zero height, or zero depth is the bottom of the snowpack.

Snow pits were conducted to measure the temperature, salinity, density and 18O profile through the snow pack as well as a visual description of grain size, crystal form and hardness of each layer of snow. Many of the sites had an ice surface that was below freeboard due to snow loading. This created a salty slush layer on top of the sea ice that had salinities well above the salinity of seawater and were 10-20 cm thick in places. This slush layer also had a wicked layer of snow above it where the snow was wicking the brine up into the snow pack, 10 cm in places.

The fundamental objectives of United States Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (U.S. GLOBEC) Program are dependent upon the cooperation of scientists from several disciplines. Physicists, biologists, and chemists must make use of data collected during U.S. GLOBEC field programs to further our understanding of the interplay of physics, biology, and chemistry. Our objectives require quantitative analysis of interdisciplinary data sets and, therefore, data must be exchanged between researchers. To extract the full scientific value, data must be made available to the scientific community on a timely basis.

U.S. GLOBEC (GLOBal ocean ECosystems dynamics) is a research program organized by oceanographers and fisheries scientists to address the question of how global climate change may affect the abundance and production of animals in the sea.

The U.S. GLOBEC Program currently had major research efforts underway in the Georges Bank / Northwest Atlantic Region, and the Northeast Pacific (with components in the California Current and in the Coastal Gulf of Alaska). U.S. GLOBEC was a major contributor to International GLOBEC efforts in the Southern Ocean and Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP).