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Light transmission through a sea ice cover has strong implications for the heat content of the upper ocean, the magnitude of bottom and lateral ice melt, and primary productivity in the ocean. Light transmittance in the vicinity of the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Central Observatory was estimated by driving a two-stream radiative transfer model with physical property observations. Data include point and transect observations of snow depth, surface scattering layer thickness, ice thickness, and pond depth. The temporal evolution of light transmittance at specific sites and the spatial variability along transect lines were computed. Ponds transmitted 4–6 times as much solar energy per unit area as bare ice. On July 25, ponds covered about 18% of the area and contributed roughly 50% of the sunlight transmitted through the ice cover. Approximating the transmittance along a transect line using average values for the physical properties will always result in lower light transmittance than finding the average light transmittance using the full distribution of points. Transmitted solar energy calculated using the standard five ice thickness categories and three surface types used in the Los Alamos sea ice model CICE, the sea ice component of many weather and climate models, was only about 1 W m−2 less than using all the points along the transect. This minor difference suggests that the important processes and resulting feedbacks relating to solar transmittance can be represented in models that use five or more categories of ice thickness distributions. 

Abstract The development of algorithms for remote sensing of water quality (RSWQ) requires a large amount ofin situdata to account for the bio-geo-optical diversity of inland and coastal waters. The GLObal Reflectance community dataset for Imaging and optical sensing of Aquatic environments (GLORIA) includes 7,572 curated hyperspectral remote sensing reflectance measurements at 1 nm intervals within the 350 to 900 nm wavelength range. In addition, at least one co-located water quality measurement of chlorophylla, total suspended solids, absorption by dissolved substances, and Secchi depth, is provided. The data were contributed by researchers affiliated with 59 institutions worldwide and come from 450 different water bodies, making GLORIA thede-factostate of knowledge ofin situcoastal and inland aquatic optical diversity. Each measurement is documented with comprehensive methodological details, allowing users to evaluate fitness-for-purpose, and providing a reference for practitioners planning similar measurements. We provide open and free access to this dataset with the goal of enabling scientific and technological advancement towards operational regional and global RSWQ monitoring. 

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.