skip to main content


Title: Methane In-Situ and In-Vitro Data in Seawater, Sea Ice, and Meltwater from the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), October 2019 - October 2020
This data has been collected and processed as part of the MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition. MOSAiC is a collaborative initiative led by the Alfred Wegener Institute and has received substantial funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, as well as the US National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, NOAA, and NASA. Numerous other international agencies and institutions have also made significant contributions. The primary objective of this program was to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the evolving Arctic over the course of a year. The expedition took place from October 2019 to October 2020 and was conducted aboard the Research Vessel Ice Breaker (RVIB) Polarstern, involving participants from 20 nations. As part of this submission, we are presenting five distinct datasets. Two of these datasets are related to seawater, two pertain to meltwater, and one pertains to sea ice. The "in-situ" datasets provide information on dissolved methane concentrations and isotope ratios, while the "in-vitro" datasets offer insights into potential methane oxidation rate constants. In the case of sea ice, only "in-vitro" data was collected, as discrete measurements were obtained from another research group. These datasets are the result of the project titled "Collaborative Research: Quantifying microbial controls on the annual cycle of methane and oxygen within the ultraoligotrophic Central Arctic during MOSAiC." The aim of this study was to assess the marine methane metabolism during a one-year period in the Central Arctic Ocean. The results have provided insights into the biogeography of methane hotspots, both in terms of production and oxidation.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1821911
NSF-PAR ID:
10483264
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
NSF Arctic Data Center
Date Published:
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
Marine dissolved methane Methane oxidation rate potential MOSAiC Seawater Meltwater Sea Ice
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. This metadata links to 16S and 18S rRNA amplicon data (raw sequence reads, NCBI Accession PRJNA895866) for seawater, sea ice, meltwater, and experimental samples from the Central Arctic Ocean collected during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition in which the RV (Research Vessel) Polarstern was tethered to drifting sea ice from October 2019 to September 2020. Seawater samples were collected from the water column using a CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth) rosette or underway seawater tap during legs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the expedition. Sea ice samples were collected via coring (FYI (first-year ice), SYI (second-year ice)) or scooped with a saw and/or sieve (new ice formation) during legs 1, 3, 4, and 5 of the expedition. Summer meltwater was from surface layers within leads or melt ponds and was collected using pump systems during legs 4 and 5 of the expedition. Experimental samples were filtered and processed post nutrient addition, stable isotope, or elevated methane incubations to pair community structure with biogeochemical measurements. Original data published with the National Center for Biotechnology Information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/895866 ; Please contact data creators before use. 
    more » « less
  2. This dataset contains water column oxygen measurements from multi-day bottle incubations collected in the Central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition – in which the RV (Research Vessel) Polarstern was tethered to sea ice, drifting across the Central Arctic Ocean from October 2019 to September 2020. Water was collected from various depths in the water column for whole seawater respiration rates via oxygen evolution incubations during legs 1, 3, 4, and 5 of the expedition. Incubations took place in a 1 ºC (celsius) cold room onboard Polarstern. Due to temperature stability and bubble formation issues, most measurements were compromised and data has been flagged accordingly during quality checks. 
    more » « less
  3. We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number. 
    more » « less
  4. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition was an international initiative in which research vessel (R/V) Polarstern drifted with the sea ice in the Central Arctic Ocean from October 2019 to September 2020. Here, we present data from a study in which Beryllium-7, a naturally occurring radioactive isotope with a half-life of 53 days, is used as a tracer for the atmospheric deposition of trace elements to the ocean / ice surface and their partitioning among the seawater, ice and snow catchments during winter and spring. The data sets include measurements of Be-7 in 1) aerosol particles collected on filters using a high volume sampler on Polastern, 2) seawater from the upper water column (8-60 meters depth) collected using the ship’s seawater intake system and using pumps on the ice floe, and 3) ice cores, snow, and frost flowers collected from sites on the MOSAiC and surrounding ice floes. Be-7 analysis was performed using high purity germanium gamma detectors. 
    more » « less
  5. Year-round observations of the physical snow and ice properties and processes that govern the ice pack evolution and its interaction with the atmosphere and the ocean were conducted during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition of the research vessel Polarstern in the Arctic Ocean from October 2019 to September 2020. This work was embedded into the interdisciplinary design of the 5 MOSAiC teams, studying the atmosphere, the sea ice, the ocean, the ecosystem, and biogeochemical processes. The overall aim of the snow and sea ice observations during MOSAiC was to characterize the physical properties of the snow and ice cover comprehensively in the central Arctic over an entire annual cycle. This objective was achieved by detailed observations of physical properties and of energy and mass balance of snow and ice. By studying snow and sea ice dynamics over nested spatial scales from centimeters to tens of kilometers, the variability across scales can be considered. On-ice observations of in situ and remote sensing properties of the different surface types over all seasons will help to improve numerical process and climate models and to establish and validate novel satellite remote sensing methods; the linkages to accompanying airborne measurements, satellite observations, and results of numerical models are discussed. We found large spatial variabilities of snow metamorphism and thermal regimes impacting sea ice growth. We conclude that the highly variable snow cover needs to be considered in more detail (in observations, remote sensing, and models) to better understand snow-related feedback processes. The ice pack revealed rapid transformations and motions along the drift in all seasons. The number of coupled ice–ocean interface processes observed in detail are expected to guide upcoming research with respect to the changing Arctic sea ice. 
    more » « less