NASA Earthdata hosts a dataset for estimating Antarctic ice melt using stable isotopic analyses of seawater. The project involves international collaborators from the U.S., Korea, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Germany, with data collection and analysis coordinated by AMD_USAPDC. The dataset was last updated in July 2021.
Use Cases
- Model meltwater introduction rates using seawater isotopic composition (18O, deuterium) and salinity perturbations.
- Detect regional accelerations in ice melt by analyzing cumulative isotopic and salinity data over years to decades.
- Constrain ice sheet melt rates by discriminating freshwater from glacial ice versus precipitation or sea ice melt using isotope and salinity data.
- Calibrate isotope-enabled Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) models with field measurements of seawater temperature and salinity.
Strengths
- Method is accepted for determining rates and locations of meltwater entry into oceans.
- International collaboration involves multiple nations for sample collection and data interpretation.
- Data supports analysis over multi-year to decadal timescales for trend detection.
Limitations
- Specific row count, column details, and sample size are unknown.
- Geographic coverage may be biased towards sampled regions like the Ross Sea and West Antarctica.
- Temporal coverage and update frequency beyond the 2021 timestamp are unspecified.
Provenance
- Source
- NASA Earthdata, from the AMD_USAPDC organization.
- Collection Method
- Seawater samples collected from vessels in Antarctic waters, with isotopic and salinity analysis performed at Stanford University.
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Antarctic coastal seas, with concentrated sampling in the Ross Sea and West Antarctica.