SA Agulhas II Winter 2017 Cruise: Ice Edge Drifter GPS Tracks

Three GPS beacons were deployed on Antarctic sea ice floes in July 2017 to measure drift. The instruments recorded location data at 4-hour intervals, with tracks lasting from several weeks to nearly five months. The dataset contains the GPS coordinates, dates, and times for each unit, submitted by the organization AU_AADC.

Use Cases

• Modeling sea ice drift trajectories based on GPS location data.
• Analyzing the survival duration of sensors on ice floes based on the temporal coverage of each unit.
• Studying the characteristics of the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone based on deployment location and ice thickness described.
• Comparing the drift patterns of different ice floes based on the separate tracks for Unit 1, 2, and 3.

Strengths

• Provides specific deployment coordinates (e.g., ~62.8 S, 29.8 E) and ice thickness (~50 cm).
• Documents precise temporal coverage for each unit, with the longest track spanning from 5 July to 1 December 2017.
• Data has a defined temporal resolution of 4 hours.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last updated 2017-12-01 23:59:59.999000; freshness should be verified.

Provenance

Source

AU_AADC via nasa_earthdata

Collection Method

Data collected by three Trident Sensors Helix beacons deployed manually on sea ice floes.

Time Range

5 July 2017 to 1 December 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2017-12-01 23:59:59.999000.

Geography

Southern Ocean, Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone, starting near 62.8 S, 29.8 E