Thickness, Salinity and Stable Isotope Composition of Sea Ice Samples from the Laptev Sea, 1999

This data set consists of sea ice measurements including thickness, salinity, and stable isotope composition from the Laptev Sea. The data were obtained during the Transdrift VI expedition to the Laptev Sea in April and May of 1999 as part of a project supported through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic System Science (ARCSS) Program. Sea ice cores were obtained with a 10 cm diameter corer. Ice thickness was measured in centimeters at the site with a tape measure. On-site, 2 cm thick horizontal sections were cut approximately every 10 cm down the core. Salinity of each sample was determined in practical salinity units (psu) using a salinity, conductivity, and temperature meter with an error of less than 0.02 or 1 percent of bulk salinity. Oxygen stable isotope (delta oxygen-18, or delta 18-O) measurements were then performed at the Stable Isotope Laboratory (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada) on a mass spectrometer at a precision of better than 0.4 parts per thousand (ppt, 10 ³).

Data are compiled into one comma-separated variable (CSV) ASCII file, named "icecoredata.csv." The single ASCII file is approximately 6 KB. The file contains data in 96 rows by 10 columns. The top row is a header that indicates the content of the various columns. Data are compiled for each coring location, though stable isotope measurements were not obtained for all samples.