Arctic Ocean Mooring Measurements of Ice Draft and Hydrography

Mooring D collected over 14.9 million samples of ice draft, pressure, and temperature from an upward-looking sonar during its 346-day deployment. The Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project deployed instruments including a bottom pressure recorder and a moored profiler measuring salinity and velocity. The dataset was collected by SCIOPS from 2006 to 2007.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in ice_draft from the upward-looking sonar to study sea ice thickness variability.
• Correlate temperature and salinity profiles from the moored profiler with horizontal_velocity data to understand water mass movement.
• Use bottom pressure_recorder data to infer changes in sea surface height and freshwater storage in the gyre.
• Validate satellite-derived sea ice thickness estimates against the in-situ ice_draft measurements.

Strengths

• Upward-looking sonar provides 14,974,220 high-frequency samples of ice draft, pressure, and temperature.
• Mooring deployment lasted 346 days, capturing a full annual cycle.
• McLane Moored Profiler collected 309 profiles of pressure, temperature, salinity, and horizontal velocity.

Limitations

• Dataset is temporally limited to a single year (2006-2007).
• Geographic coverage is limited to a single mooring location in the Beaufort Gyre.
• Sample data and specific column definitions are unavailable for review.

Provenance

Source

SCIOPS (Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project) via NASA Earthdata.

Collection Method

In-situ measurements from a moored platform equipped with a bottom pressure recorder, McLane Moored Profiler, and upward-looking sonar.

Time Range

2006-2007 (346-day deployment).

Freshness

Data collection ended in 2007; last metadata update was 2008-03-21.

Geography

Beaufort Gyre region of the Arctic Ocean (specific mooring location D).