Abstract:
20 Ice Trackers were deployed at the MOSAiC drifting site. The deployment of the trackers was made from the helicopter onboard RV Polarstern during Leg 5 of the expedition. The data contain the GPS positioning of the trackers (and the motion of the ice on which the trackers were deployed). The data record starts from early September 2020 and lasted until July 2021 for the longest-surviving trackers. The trackers started their drift near the North Pole and move to the south through the Fram Strait. The deployment of the trackers was done in collaboration with the MOSAiC ice team.
This work was funded by NERC MOSAiC program NE/S002545/1.
Keywords:
Arctic, GPS, MOSAiC, deformation, ice drift, ice dynamics, sea ice
Hwang, B., & MOSAiC Ice Team. (2022). Ice Tracker data of Arctic sea ice during the MOSAiC expedition 2020-2021 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/1adf30fe-126c-4fde-8805-315b47911dbf
| Access Constraints: | No restrictions apply. |
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| Use Constraints: | Data supplied under Open Government Licence v3.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. |
| Creation Date: | 2022-07-04 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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| Personnel: | |
| Name | UK Polar Data Centre |
| Role(s) | Metadata Author |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Byongjun Hwang |
| Role(s) | Investigator, Technical Contact |
| Organisation | University of Huddersfield |
| Name | MOSAiC ice team |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | MOSAiC expedition |
| Parent Dataset: | N/A |
| Quality: | The data quality from the ice trackers can be affected by ice conditions and the position of the trackers. The trackers should be positioned upright to have a clear sky view for satellite reception for GPS and telemetry. Dynamic ice conditions can also affect the data quality and the failure of the trackers, e.g., ridging or deformation events can damage the ice trackers. In this case, the ice trackers stop transmitting the data. Therefore, some trackers were short-lived, while other trackers lasted longer. Some erroneous GPS positioning data can occur due to environmental factors mentioned above. These erroneous GPS positioning data have been removed through manual inspection of latitude and longitude coordinates. The ice trackers use a standard GPS receiver, so the typical positioning error is ~1-3 m. | |
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| Lineage: | Ice trackers were manufactured by Pacific Gyre (www.pacificgyre.com). The trackers are designed to survive harsh environments and ice conditions and are air-deployable at ~40 m or less. The trackers record GPS positioning and are equipped with Iridium 2-way satellite telemetry (the specification of the ice tracker can be found on the Pacific Gyre website, www.pacificgyre.com/ice-tracker.aspx). A total of 20 ice trackers were air-deployed during the Leg 5 of the MOSAiC expedition. The trackers were deployed near the North Pole and drifted to the south through the Fram Strait. The buoy array formed by the trackers ranges from sub-kilometre scale to tens of kilometres and can be used to calculate the strain rates (and the deformation), as well as general ice drift parameters. | |
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2020-09-02 |
| End Date | 2021-07-16 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | 75 |
| Northernmost | 90 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -30 |
| Easternmost | 120 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Data Resolution: | |
| Latitude Resolution | N/A |
| Longitude Resolution | N/A |
| Horizontal Resolution Range | N/A |
| Vertical Resolution | N/A |
| Vertical Resolution Range | N/A |
| Temporal Resolution | 30 min, 60 min |
| Temporal Resolution Range | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Arctic |
| Detailed Location | Arctic Ocean |
| Sensor(s): |
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| Data Collection: | The Ice Trackers were manufactured by Pacific Gyre (www.pacificgyre.com). The data collected in the trackers were transmitted to Pacific Gyre where they stored the data. The raw data files were downloaded from the web interface maintained by Pacific Gyre. The raw files contain the data before the deployment, so the data before the deployment were removed. |
| Distribution: | |
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| Distribution Media | Online Internet (HTTP) |
| Distribution Size | 6.2 MB |
| Distribution Format | ASCII |
| Fees | N/A |
| Data Storage: | The dataset comprises 20 CSV files. They all contain the following parameters. DeviceDateTime String, dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS Date and time (in UTC) when GPS coordinates were recorded. Longitude Decimal degree Longitude of GPS coordinate. Latitude Decimal degree Longitude of GPS coordinate. GPSQuality Integer, Index Quality flag for the GPS fix. "3" is 3D fix with 4 or more satellites were used to calculate the position; "2" is 2D fix; "1" means no good reception to calculate a valid position. BatteryVoltage Integer, V The battery voltage of the tracker; typically stops transmitting the data when the battery drain below 6-7V. AccelerometerVariance Integer, milligal-squared A sum of acceleration is calculated by adding up all three axis values and dividing by 3 every second (x+y+z)/3; the variance is then calculated for 128 samples (or 128 seconds). SamplingRate Integer, minutes Sampling interval for the position. |