ALBERT

Description: This dataset reports measurements from a laboratory incubation of soils sourced from a boreal peatland and surrounding habitats (Siikaneva Bog, Finland). In August 2021, soil cores were collected from three habitat zones: a well-drained upland forest, an intermediate margin ecotone, and a Sphagnum moss bog. The cores from each habitat were taken from surface to approximately 50cm below surface using an Eijelkamp peat corer and subdivided by soil horizon. The samples were then incubated anaerobically for 140 days in three temperature treatment groups (0, 4, 20°C). Subsamples of the incubations headspace (250 µL) were measured on a gas chromatograph (7890A, Agilent Technologies, USA) with flame ionization detection (FID) for CO2 and CH4 concentrations. The rate of respiration from the samples were calculated per gram carbon and per gram soil as described in the method of Robertson., et al. (1999) and reported here, along with other relevant parameters.

Description: The pollution of the marine environment with plastic debris is expected to increase, where ocean currents and winds cause their accumulation in convergence zones like the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG). Surface-floating plastic (〉330 μm) was collected in the North Pacific Ocean between Vancouver (Canada) and Singapore using a neuston catamaran and identified by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Baseline concentrations of 41,600–102,700 items km–2 were found, dominated by polyethylene and polypropylene. Higher concentrations (factors 4–10) of plastic items occurred not only in the NPSG (452,800 items km–2) but also in a second area, the Papaha̅naumokua̅kea Marine National Monument (PMNM, 285,200 items km–2). This second maximum was neither reported previously nor predicted by the applied ocean current model. Visual observations of floating debris (〉5 cm; 8–2565 items km–2 and 34–4941 items km–2 including smaller “white bits”) yielded similar patterns of baseline pollution (34–3265 items km–2) and elevated concentrations of plastic debris in the NPSG (67–4941 items km–2) and the PMNM (295–3748 items km–2). These findings suggest that ocean currents are not the only factor provoking plastic debris accumulation in the ocean. Visual observations may be useful to increase our knowledge of large-scale (micro)plastic pollution in the global oceans.

Description: Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) are widely used to control rodent populations, resulting in the serious secondary exposure of predators to these contaminants. In the United Kingdom (UK), professional use and purchase of SGARs were revised in the 2010s. Certain highly toxic SGARs have been authorized since then to be used outdoors around buildings as resistance-breaking chemicals under risk mitigation procedures. However, it is still uncertain whether and how these regulatory changes have influenced the secondary exposure of birds of prey to SGARs. Based on biomonitoring of the UK Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) collected from 2001 to 2019, we assessed the temporal trend of exposure to SGARs and statistically determined potential turning points. The magnitude of difenacoum decreased over time with a seasonal fluctuation, while the magnitude and prevalence of more toxic brodifacoum, authorized to be used outdoors around buildings after the regulatory changes, increased. The summer of 2016 was statistically identified as a turning point for exposure to brodifacoum and summed SGARs that increased after this point. This time point coincided with the aforementioned regulatory changes. Our findings suggest a possible shift in SGAR use to brodifacoum from difenacoum over the decades, which may pose higher risks of impacts on wildlife.

Description: TR17-08, a marine sedimentary core (14.6 m), was collected during 2017 from the Edisto Inlet (Ross Sea, Antarctica), a small fjord near Cape Hallett. The core is characterized by expanded laminated sedimentary sequences making it suitable for studying submillennial processes during the Early Holocene. By studying different well-known foraminifera species (Globocassidulina biora, G. subglobosa, Trifarina angulosa, Nonionella iridea, Epistominella exigua, Stainforthia feylingi, Miliammina arenacea, Paratrochammina bartrami and Portatrochammina antarctica), we were able to identify five different foraminiferal assemblages over the last ∼ 2000 years BP. Comparison with diatom assemblages and other geochemical proxies retrieved from nearby sediment cores in the Edisto Inlet (BAY05-20 and HLF17-1) made it possible to distinguish three different phases characterized by different environmental settings: (1) a seasonal phase (from 2012 to 1486 years BP) characterized by the dominance of calcareous species, indicating a seasonal opening of the inlet by more frequent events of melting of the sea-ice cover during the austral summer and, in general, a higher-productivity, more open and energetic environment; (2) a transitional phase (from 1486 to 696 years BP) during which the fjord experienced less extensive sea-ice melting, enhanced oxygen-poor conditions and carbonate dissolution conditions, indicated by the shifts from calcareous-dominated association to agglutinated-dominated association probably due to a freshwater input from the retreat of three local glaciers at the start of this period; and (3) a cooler phase (from 696 years BP to present) during which the sedimentation rate decreased and few to no foraminiferal specimens were present, indicating ephemeral openings or a more prolonged cover of the sea ice during the austral summer, affecting the nutrient supply and the sedimentation regime.

Description: Published

Description: 95–115

Description: OSA2: Evoluzione climatica: effetti e loro mitigazione

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) is an important component of the global carbon cycle, yet its intricate composition and the sea salt matrix pose major challenges for chemical analysis. We introduce a direct injection, reversed-phase liquid chromatography ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry approach to analyze marine DOM without the need for solid-phase extraction. Effective separation of salt and DOM is achieved with a large chromatographic column and an extended isocratic aqueous step. Postcolumn dilution of the sample flow with buffer-free solvents and implementing a counter gradient reduced salt buildup in the ion source and resulted in excellent repeatability. With this method, over 5,500 unique molecular formulas were detected from just 5.5 nmol carbon in 100 μL of filtered Arctic Ocean seawater. We observed a highly linear detector response for variable sample carbon concentrations and a high robustness against the salt matrix. Compared to solid-phase extracted DOM, our direct injection method demonstrated superior sensitivity for heteroatom-containing DOM. The direct analysis of seawater offers fast and simple sample preparation and avoids fractionation introduced by extraction. The method facilitates studies in environments, where only minimal sample volume is available e.g. in marine sediment pore water, ice cores, or permafrost soil solution. The small volume requirement also supports higher spatial (e.g., in soils) or temporal sample resolution (e.g., in culture experiments). Chromatographic separation adds further chemical information to molecular formulas, enhancing our understanding of marine biogeochemistry, chemodiversity, and ecological processes.

Description: Marine permeable sediments are important sites for organic matter turnover in the coastal ocean. However, little is known about their role in trapping dissolved organic matter (DOM). Here, we examined DOM abundance and molecular compositions (9804 formulas identified) in subtidal permeable sediments along a near- to offshore gradient in the German North Sea. With the salinity increasing from 30.1 to 34.6 PSU, the DOM composition in bottom water shifts from relatively higher abundances of aromatic compounds to more highly unsaturated compounds. In the bulk sediment, DOM leached by ultrapure water (UPW) from the solid phase is 54 ± 20 times more abundant than DOM in porewater, with higher H/C ratios and a more terrigenous signature. With 0.5 M HCl, the amount of leached DOM (enriched in aromatic and oxygen-rich compounds) is doubled compared to UPW, mainly due to the dissolution of poorly crystalline Fe phases (e.g., ferrihydrite and Fe monosulfides). This suggests that poorly crystalline Fe phases promote DOM retention in permeable sediments, preferentially terrigenous, and aromatic fractions. Given the intense filtration of seawater through the permeable sediments, we posit that Fe can serve as an important intermediate storage for terrigenous organic matter and potentially accelerate organic matter burial in the coastal ocean.

Description: Surface air temperature measurements obtained from different sensors are used to construct a unique time series with one minute time-interval. Apart from differences in design and environmental exposition, periods of missing data also exist in the data series of each sensor. A primary data set was selected in terms of quality and temporal extension. A combination of two different techniques is applied to complete this data set: one is based on the autocorrelation of the series and the other on measurements taken from other sensors. The resulting values constitute a complete series of surface air temperature at AGGO.

Description: Presented are analytical data from lacustrine sediment cores, retrieved from Lake Nam Co (Tibetan Plateau). The sediment core is a composite of one gravity core, taken with a Rumohr-Meischner gravity corer (63 mm diameter) and a piston core, retrieved using an uwitec piston coring system (http://www.uwitec.at; 90 mm diameter). The composite core labelled 〈NC 08/01〉 comprises a total length of 10.378 m. The cores were obtained at N 30.737417, E 090.790333 at a water depth of 93 m on 2008-09-15. The purpose of obtaining this sediment core was to establish a high-resolution record of climate (monsoonal) and environmental change using multiple proxy data. The dataset comprises analytical data based on sedimentological, inorganic geochemical, mineralogical and isotope-geochemical methods. Specifically: sediment water content & density; magnetic susceptibility; particel size data; quantitative inorganic geochemical data (ICP-OES aqua regia and HCL digestions); semi-quantitative XRF elemental data; carbon, nitrogen, sulfur contents; qualitative mineralogical data; bulk sediment stable carbon and oxygen isotope data.

Description: This data set is part of a larger data harmonization effort to make lake sediment core data machine readable and comparable. Here we standardized X-ray fluorescence line scanning (XRF)-based element data of sediment core EN18208, retrieved in 2018 from Lake Ilirney (Chukotka, Russia) at 10.76 m water depth. The glacial lake Ilirney is situated in the forest tundra mountain area and has one outflow, one main inflow and several smaller inflows. It lies at an elevation of ca. 428 m a.s.l. with a surface area of ca. 30 km2 and a maximum lake water depth of estimated 44 m. The 10.76 m sediment core was retrieved by a UWITEC piston corer during the RU-Land_2018_Chukotka expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany, Potsdam) in cooperation with the North Eastern Federal State University (NEFU, Russia, Yakutsk). The downcore elemental composition was measured using an AVAATECH x-ray fluorescence core scanner at Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR) in Berlin, Spandau.

Description: This data set is part of a larger data harmonization effort to make lake sediment core data machine readable and comparable. Here we standardized radiocarbon and OSL age data of sediment core EN18208, retrieved in 2018 from Lake Ilirney (Chukotka, Russia) at 10.76 m water depth. The glacial lake Ilirney is situated in the forest tundra mountain area and has one outflow, one main inflow and several smaller inflows. It lies at an elevation of ca. 428 m a.s.l. with a surface area of ca. 30 km2 and a maximum lake water depth of estimated 44 m. The 10.76 m sediment core was retrieved by a UWITEC piston corer during the RU-Land_2018_Chukotka expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany, Potsdam) in cooperation with the North Eastern Federal State University (NEFU, Russia, Yakutsk). Radiocarbon data have been analysed from bulk sediment samples in Bremerhaven at the MICADAS laboratory. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating was performed at the Royal Holloway Luminescence Laboratory using a Risø TL/OSL-DA-15 automated dating system.

Description: A 25-cm long predominantly aragonite stalagmite was collected November 2, 2005 from Dharamjali Cave (29.5°N, 80.2°E) in the central Himalayas. This dataset contains stable isotope, trace element, XRF, U/Th dating, and dripwater data. The age model spans 4.2 to 2.3 ka BP, and the dataset records seasonal shifts in hydroclimate from 4.2 to 3.1 ka BP. Using the DHAR-1A half of the speleothem, 750 samples were milled at 100–300 µm resolution for stable isotope analysis (δ18O and δ13C) and analyzed at GFZ Potsdam. Further high-resolution stable isotope analysis at the University of Cambridge included 876 samples from the bottom 4 cm of the mirroring slab DHAR-1B, covering c. 4.2–3.6 ka BP. The δ44/40Ca measurements were made on 60 aragonite samples of aragonite and 1 calcite sample milled between 4.2 and 2.8 ka BP. The elemental composition of DHAR-1B was determined first with an Avaatech XRF scanner at the University of Cambridge, and later using laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) at the University of Waikato. U-series dating was performed at Caltech on 22 samples. Twelve U-series ages (between 2.55 and 4.14 ka BP) were used to construct the age models, using ensembles of 2000 Monte Carlo simulations for each proxy using the MATLAB-based COPRA script (Breitenbach et al., 2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-1765-2012).

Description: This data set is part of a larger data harmonization effort to make lake sediment core data machine readable and comparable. Here we standardized grain size element data of sediment core EN18208, retrieved in 2018 from Lake Ilirney (Chukotka, Russia) at 10.76 m water depth. The glacial lake Ilirney is situated in the forest tundra mountain area and has one outflow, one main inflow and several smaller inflows. It lies at an elevation of ca. 428 m a.s.l. with a surface area of ca. 30 km2 and a maximum lake water depth of estimated 44 m. The 10.76 m sediment core was retrieved by a UWITEC piston corer during the RU-Land_2018_Chukotka expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany, Potsdam) in cooperation with the North Eastern Federal State University (NEFU, Russia, Yakutsk). Grain-size was measured using a Malvern Mastersizer 3000 laser diffraction particle analyser.

Description: This data set is part of a larger data harmonization effort to make lake sediment core data machine readable and comparable. Here we standardized mineral data of sediment core EN18208, retrieved in 2018 from Lake Ilirney (Chukotka, Russia) at 10.76 m water depth. The glacial lake Ilirney is situated in the forest tundra mountain area and has one outflow, one main inflow and several smaller inflows. It lies at an elevation of ca. 428 m a.s.l. with a surface area of ca. 30 km2 and a maximum lake water depth of estimated 44 m. The 10.76 m sediment core was retrieved by a UWITEC piston corer during the RU-Land_2018_Chukotka expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany, Potsdam) in cooperation with the North Eastern Federal State University (NEFU, Russia, Yakutsk). Bulk mineralogy was analysed by (x-ray diffractometry (XRD) using a (PHILIPS, Netherlands) PW1820 goniometer.

Description: This data set is part of a larger data harmonization effort to make lake sediment core data machine readable and comparable. Here we standardized radiocarbon and OSL age data of sediment core EN18208, retrieved in 2018 from Lake Ilirney (Chukotka, Russia) at 10.76 m water depth. The glacial lake Ilirney is situated in the forest tundra mountain area and has one outflow, one main inflow and several smaller inflows. It lies at an elevation of ca. 428 m a.s.l. with a surface area of ca. 30 km2 and a maximum lake water depth of estimated 44 m. The 10.76 m sediment core was retrieved by a UWITEC piston corer during the RU-Land_2018_Chukotka expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany, Potsdam) in cooperation with the North Eastern Federal State University (NEFU, Russia, Yakutsk). Water content and organic matter was analysed at AWI Potsdam. Dried and milled samples were analysed using a Vario EL III carbon-nitrogen-sulphur analyser. Organic carbon content was determined using a Vario MAX C analyser.

Description: Surface air temperature measurements obtained from different sensors are used to construct a unique time series with one minute time-interval. Apart from differences in design and environmental exposition, periods of missing data also exist in the data series of each sensor. A primary data set was selected in terms of quality and temporal extension. A combination of two different techniques is applied to complete this data set: one is based on the autocorrelation of the series and the other on measurements taken from other sensors. The resulting values constitute a complete series of surface air temperature at AGGO.

Description: This dataset contain stable isotope values for water samples collected ~weekly from the Rio Bermejo at the Lavalle bridge (-25.6513, -60.1277) from March 2016 to February 2018. Water samples were filtered to 0.2 micron using a custom filtration device. We measured d2H and d18O on a Picarro L-2140i Cavity Ring-Down Spectrometer at the GFZ Potsdam. Measurements were made in duplicate, normalized to the Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW), and analytical uncertainty is reported as one standard deviation from the mean. River discharge was measured at the El Colorado gauging station, which is ~100 km down slope from the sampling location.

Description: This dataset provides the geochemistry data for the Holocene sediment sequence retrieved from Lake Uddelermeer (The Netherlands) in 2012. Additionally, alkane concentrations for a set of modern leaf samples are provided. Concentrations of fossil alkanes, GDGTs as well as elemental (C, N, S, H) and compound-specific delta Deuterium measurements are presented against both depth (cm) and age (cal yr. BP). A total of 59 samples were analysed. Modern leaf alkane concentrations are presented as concentrations, 10 samples were analysed. The geochemical data provides information about regional vegetation change as well as changes in effective precipitation. It was produced to inform on the age and duration of major environmental transitions during the middle and late Holocene. Cores were retrieved from the lake using a 3-m long handheld piston corer deployed from a floating coring platform during field work in April and May 2012. Samples were obtained from splits of the core and processed in the laboratory of the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) using standard protocols (CNHS, alkane concentrations), the laboratory of Utrecht University (the Netherlands; GDGT concentrations) and at GFZ Potsdam (Germany; delta Deuterium). Name of the Campaign: UDD Event Label: UDD-E Method: Uwitec piston corer Latitude: 52.24652778 Longitude: 5.76097222 Elevation: 24m asl Date/Time of event: 2012-05-01T14:00:00 Further information about event: Lake sediment sequence retrieved using a 60 mm piston corer deployed from a floating platform.

Description: Water samples were filtered to 0.2 micron prior to measurement. Samples for cation analysis were acidified in the field to pH 〈 2 using 6N HNO3. Cation concentrations were measured with a Varian 720 inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) at the GFZ Helmholtz Laboratory for the Geochemistry of the Earth Surface (HELGES), using SLRS-5 (Saint-Laurent River Surface, National Research Council - Conseil National de Recherches Canada) and USGS M212 and USGS T187 as external standards. We corrected for instrument drift by measuring an internal standard (GFZ-RW1) every 10 samples and we determined measurement uncertainty using calibration curve uncertainty. Anion concentrations were measured with a Dionex ICS1100 Ion Chromatograph, using USGS standards M206 and M212 as external standards for quality control, with uncertainty determined from triplicate analysis. We corrected cation concentrations for cyclic salt inputs following Bickle et al. (2005, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2004.11.019).

Description: Abstract. Clouds are assumed to play an important role in the Arctic amplification process. This motivated a detailed investigation of cloud processes, including radiative and turbulent fluxes. Data from the aircraft campaign ACLOUD were analyzed with a focus on the mean and turbulent structure of the cloudy boundary layer over the Fram Strait marginal sea ice zone in late spring and early summer 2017. Vertical profiles of turbulence moments are presented from contrasting atmospheric boundary layers (ABLs) from 4 d. They differ by the magnitude of wind speed, boundary-layer height, stability, the strength of the cloud-top radiative cooling and the number of cloud layers. Turbulence statistics up to third-order moments are presented, which were obtained from horizontal-level flights and from slanted profiles. It is shown that both of these flight patterns complement each other and form a data set that resolves the vertical structure of the ABL turbulence well. The comparison of the 4 d shows that especially during weak wind, even in shallow Arctic ABLs with mixing ratios below 3 g kg-1, cloud-top cooling can serve as a main source of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE).Well-mixed ABLs are generated where TKE is increased and vertical velocity variance shows pronounced maxima in the cloud layer. Negative vertical velocity skewness points then to upside-down convection. Turbulent heat fluxes are directed upward in the cloud layer as a result of cold downdrafts. In two cases with single-layer stratocumulus, turbulent transport of heat flux and of temperature variance are both negative in the cloud layer, suggesting an important role of large eddies. In contrast, in a case with weak cloud-top cooling, these quantities are positive in the ABL due to the heating from the surface. Based on observations and results of a mixed-layer model it is shown that the maxima of turbulent fluxes are, however, smaller than the jump of the net terrestrial radiation flux across the upper part of a cloud due to the (i) shallowness of the mixed layer and (ii) the presence of a downward entrainment heat flux. The mixed-layer model also shows that the buoyancy production of TKE is substantially smaller in stratocumulus over the Arctic sea ice compared to subtropics due to a smaller surface moisture flux and smaller decrease in specific humidity (or even humidity inversions) right above the cloud top. In a case of strong wind, wind shear shapes the ABL turbulent structure, especially over rough sea ice, despite the presence of a strong cloud-top cooling. In the presence of mid-level clouds, cloud-top radiative cooling and thus also TKE in the lowermost cloud layer are strongly reduced, and the ABL turbulent structure becomes governed by stability, i.e., by the surface–air temperature difference and wind speed. A comparison of slightly unstable and weakly stable cases shows a strong reduction of TKE due to increased stability even though the absolute value of wind speed was similar. In summary, the presented study documents vertical profiles of the ABL turbulence with a high resolution in a wide range of conditions. It can serve as a basis for turbulence closure evaluation and process studies in Arctic clouds.

Description: Springtime Arctic mixed-phase convection over open water in the Fram Strait as observed during the recent ACLOUD (Arctic CLoud Observations Using airborne measurements during polar Day) field campaign is simulated at turbulence-resolving resolutions. The first objective is to assess the skill of large-eddy simulation (LES) in reproducing the observed mixed-phase convection. The second goal is to then use the model to investigate how aerosol modulates the way in which turbulent mixing and clouds transform the low-level air mass. The focus lies on the low-level thermal structure and lapse rate, the heating efficiency of turbulent entrainment, and the low-level energy budget. A composite case is constructed based on data collected by two research aircraft on 18 June 2017. Simulations are evaluated against independent datasets, showing that the observed thermodynamic, cloudy, and turbulent states are well reproduced. Sensitivity tests on cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentration are then performed, covering a broad range between pristine polar and polluted continental values. We find a significant response in the resolved mixed-phase convection, which is in line with previous LES studies. An increased CCN substantially enhances the depth of convection and liquid cloud amount, accompanied by reduced surface precipitation. Initializing with the in situ CCN data yields the best agreement with the cloud and turbulence observations, a result that prioritizes its measurement during field campaigns for supporting high-resolution modeling efforts. A deeper analysis reveals that CCN significantly increases the efficiency of radiatively driven entrainment in warming the boundary layer. The marked strengthening of the thermal inversion plays a key role in this effect. The low-level heat budget shifts from surface driven to radiatively driven. This response is accompanied by a substantial reduction in the surface energy budget, featuring a weakened flow of solar radiation into the ocean. Results are interpreted in the context of air–sea interactions, air mass transformations, and climate feedbacks at high latitudes.

Description: The presence of reactive bromine in polar regions is a widespread phenomenon that plays an important role in the photochemistry of the Arctic and Antarctic lower troposphere, including the destruction of ozone, the disturbance of radical cycles, and the oxidation of gaseous elemental mercury. The chemical mechanisms leading to the heterogeneous release of gaseous bromine compounds from saline surfaces are in principle well understood. There are, however, substantial uncertainties about the contribution of different potential sources to the release of reactive bromine, such as sea ice, brine, aerosols, and the snow surface, as well as about the seasonal and diurnal variation and the vertical distribution of reactive bromine. Here we use continuous long-term measurements of the vertical distribution of bromine monoxide (BrO) and aerosols at the two Antarctic sites Neumayer (NM) and Arrival Heights (AH), covering the periods of 2003–2021 and 2012–2021, respectively, to investigate how chemical and physical parameters affect the abundance of BrO. We find the strongest correlation between BrO and aerosol extinction (R=0.56 for NM and R=0.28 for AH during spring), suggesting that the heterogeneous release of Br2 from saline airborne particles (blowing snow and aerosols) is a dominant source for reactive bromine. Positive correlations between BrO and contact time of air masses, both with sea ice and the Antarctic ice sheet, suggest that reactive bromine is not only emitted by the sea ice surface but by the snowpack on the ice shelf and in the coastal regions of Antarctica. In addition, the open ocean appears to represent a source for reactive bromine during late summer and autumn when the sea ice extent is at its minimum. A source–receptor analysis based on back trajectories and sea ice maps shows that main source regions for BrO at NM are the Weddell Sea and the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf, as well as coastal polynyas where sea ice is newly formed. A strong morning peak in BrO frequently occurring during summer and that is particularly strong during autumn suggests a night-time build-up of Br2 by heterogeneous reaction of ozone on the saline snowpack in the vicinity of the measurement sites. We furthermore show that BrO can be sustained for at least 3 d while travelling across the Antarctic continent in the absence of any saline surfaces that could serve as a source for reactive bromine.

Description: Plastic pollution has become ubiquitous with very high quantities detected even in ecosystems as remote as arctic sea ice and deepsea sediments. Ice algae growing underneath sea ice are released upon melting and can form fast-sinking aggregates. In this pilot study, we sampled and analyzed the ice algaeMelosira arcticaand ambient sea water from three locations in the Fram Strait to assess their microplastic content and potential as a temporary sink and pathway to the deep seafloor. Analysis by μ-Raman and fluorescence microscopy detected microplastics (≥2.2 μm) in all samples at concentrations ranging from 1.3 to 5.7 × 104 microplastics (MP) m−3 in ice algae and from 1.4 to 4.5 × 103 MP m−3 in sea water, indicating magnitude higher concentrations in algae. On average, 94% of the total microplastic particles were identified as 10 μm or smaller in size and comprised 16 polymer types without a clear dominance. The high concentrations of microplastics found in our pilot study suggest thatM. arctica could trap microplastics from melting ice and ambient sea water. The algae appear to be a temporary sink and could act as a key vector to food webs near the sea surface and on the deep seafloor, to which its fast-sinking aggregates could facilitate an important mechanism of transport.

Description: Plastic pollution is an international environmental problem. Desire to act is shared from the public to policymakers, yet motivation and approaches are diverging. Public attention is directed to reducing plastic consumption, cleaning local environments, and engaging in citizen science initiatives. Policymakers and regulators are working on prevention and mitigation measures, while international, regional, and national bodies are defining monitoring recommendations. Research activities are focused on validating approaches to address goals and comparing methods. Policy and regulation are eager to act on plastic pollution, often asking questions researchers cannot answer with available methods. The purpose of monitoring will define which method is implemented. A clear and open dialogue between all actors is essential to facilitate communication on what is feasible with current methods, further research, and development needs. For example, some methods can already be used for international monitoring, yet limitations including target plastic types and sizes, sampling strategy, available infrastructure and analytical capacity, and harmonization of generated data remain. Time and resources to advance scientific understanding must be balanced against the need to answer pressing policy issues.

Description: Stable water isotopologues of snow, firn and ice cores provide valuable information on past climate variations. Yet single profiles are generally not suitable for robust climate reconstructions. Stratigraphic noise, introduced by the irregular deposition, wind-driven erosion and redistribution of snow, impacts the utility of high-resolution isotope records, especially in low-Accumulation areas. However, it is currently unknown how stratigraphic noise differs across the East Antarctic Plateau and how it is affected by local environmental conditions. Here, we assess the amount and structure of stratigraphic noise at seven sites along a 120 km transect on the plateau of Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica. Replicated oxygen isotope records of 1 m length were used to estimate signal-To-noise ratios as a measure of stratigraphic noise at sites characterised by different accumulation rates (43-64 mm w.e. a-1), snow surface roughnesses and slope inclinations. While we found a high level of stratigraphic noise at all sites, there was also considerable variation between sites. At sastrugi-dominated sites, greater stratigraphic noise coincided with stronger surface roughnesses, steeper slopes and lower accumulation rates, probably related to increased wind speeds. These results provide a first step to modelling stratigraphic noise and might guide site selection and sampling strategies for future expeditions to improve high-resolution climate reconstructions from low-Accumulation regions.

Description: Despite the importance of surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. In situ observational data of SEB components - useful for research and model validation - are collected at relatively few sites across the terrestrial Arctic, and not all available datasets are readily interoperable. Furthermore, the terrestrial Arctic consists of a diversity of vegetation types, which are generally not well represented in land surface schemes of current Earth system models. This dataset describes the data generated in a literature synthesis, covering 358 study sites on vegetation or glacier (〉=60°N latitude), which contained surface energy budget observations. The literature synthesis comprised 148 publications searched on the ISI Web of Science Core Collection.

Description: The rewetting of peatlands is a promising measure to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by preventing the further mineralization of the peat soil through aeration. In coastal peatland, the rewetting with brackish water can increase the GHG mitigation potential by the introduction of sulfate, a terminal electron acceptor (TEA). Sulfate is known to lower the CH4 production and thus, its emission by favoring the growth of sulfate-reducers, which outcompete methanogens for substrate. The data contain porewater variables such as pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and sulfate, chloride, dissolved CO2 and CH4 concentrations, as well as absolute abundances of methane- and sulfate-cycling microbial communities. The data were collected in spring and autumn 2019 after a storm surge with brackish water inflow in January 2019. Field sampling was conducted in the nature reserve Heiligensee and Hütelmoor in North-East Germany, close to the Southern Baltic Sea coast. We took peat cores using a Russian peat corer in addition to pore water diffusion samplers and plastic liners (length: 60cm; inner diameter 10 cm) at four locations along a transect from further inland towards the Baltic Sea. We wanted to compare the soil and pore water geochemistry as well as the microbial communities after the brackish water inflow to the common freshwater rewetting state. Pore water was extracted using pore water suction samplers in the lab and environmental variables were quantified with an ICP. Microbial samples were sampled from the peat core using sterile equipment. We used quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to characterize pools of DNA and cDNA targeting total and putatively active bacteria and archaea. qPCR was performed on key functional genes of methane production (mcrA), aerobic methane oxidation (pmoA) and sulfate reduction (dsrB) in addition to the 16S rRNA gene for the absolute abundance of total prokaryotes. Furthermore, we retrieved soil plugs to determine the concentrations and isotopic signatures of dissolved trace gases (CO2/DIC and CH4) in the pore water.

Description: This dataset provides annually resolved microfacies data from ICDP core 5017-1-A, retrieved from the deep northern Dead Sea basin in 2010/11, for the last glacial-interglacial transition (ca. 14-13 ka BP). Sediments of the Lisan Formation were investigated between ~94.7 and 91.8 m sediment depth below lake floor (lithozone C2) by continuous thin section microscopy. Thin sections were prepared following the standard procedure by Brauer and Casanova (2001) that was adjusted for salty sediments. Thin section analyses were performed on overlapping large-scale thin sections using a Zeiss Axiolab pol microscope at magnifications of 50-400x. Microfacies analyses included varve counting and measurements of varve and sublayer thickness. The amount of varves in erosional gaps was interpolated and the position of mass flow deposits (MFD) is marked.

Description: We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number.

Description: Organic carbon (OC) stored in Arctic permafrost represents one of Earth’s largest and most vulnerable terrestrial carbon pools. Amplified climate warming across the Arctic results in widespread permafrost thaw. Permafrost deposits exposed at river cliffs and coasts are particularly susceptible to thawing processes. Accelerating erosion of terrestrial permafrost along shorelines leads to increased transfer of organic matter (OM) to nearshore waters. However, the amount of terrestrial permafrost carbon and nitrogen as well as the OM quality in these deposits are still poorly quantified. Here, we characterise the sources and the quality of OM supplied to the Lena River at a rapidly eroding permafrost river shoreline cliff in the eastern part of the delta (Sobo-Sise Island). Our multi-proxy approach captures bulk elemental, molecular geochemical and carbon isotopic analyses of late Pleistocene Yedoma permafrost and Holocene cover deposits, discontinuously spanning the last ~52 ka. We show that the ancient permafrost exposed in the Sobo-Sise cliff has a high organic carbon content (mean of about 5 wt%).We found that the OM quality, which we define as the intrinsic potential to further transformation, decomposition, and mineralization, is also high as inferred by the lipid biomarker inventory. The oldest sediments stem from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 interstadial deposits (dated to 52 to 28 cal kyr BP) and is overlaid by Last Glacial MIS 2 (dated to 28 to 15 cal ka BP) and Holocene MIS 1 (dated to 7–0 cal ka BP) deposits. The relatively high average chain length (ACL) index of n-alkanes along the cliff profile indicates a predominant contribution of vascular plants to the OM composition. The elevated ratio of iso and anteiso-branched FAs relative to long chain (C ≥ 20) n-FAs in the interstadial MIS 3 and the interglacial MIS 1 deposits, suggests stronger microbial activity and consequently higher input of bacterial biomass during these climatically warmer periods. The overall high carbon preference index (CPI) and higher plant fatty acid (HPFA) values as well as high C / N ratios point to a good quality of the preserved OM and thus to a high potential of the OM for decomposition upon thaw. A decrease of HPFA values downwards along the profile probably indicates a relatively stronger OM decomposition in the oldest (MIS 3) deposits of the cliff.

Description: We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number.

Description: These datasets describe sediment samples taken from the Batagay megaslump, located in Yana Uplands in northeastern Siberia. Most sediment samples were taken from the slump headwall (B19-P1) by rapelling down on a rope from the slump surface and taking samples with a hole saw (diameter 55 mm, 40 mm deep) mounted on a handheld power drill. A second profile (B19-02) of the lowest part of the slump headwall was sampled (~100 m south) using a hammer and axe from the slump floor. Two permafrost sediment blocks (B19-03 and B19-04) at the slump bottom that had fallen from the headwall were sampled using a chainsaw. Finally, a baidzherakh (thermokarst mound; B19-05) in the north of the slump was sampled using a hammer and axe. The samples cover 5 stratigraphical units: 1. lower ice complex, 2. lower sand unit, 3. woody layer, 4. upper ice complex, 5. Holocene cover.

Description: Organic carbon (OC) stored in Arctic permafrost represents one of Earth’s largest and most vulnerable terrestrial carbon pools. Amplified climate warming across the Arctic results in widespread permafrost thaw. Permafrost deposits exposed at river cliffs and coasts are particularly susceptible to thawing processes. Accelerating erosion of terrestrial permafrost along shorelines leads to increased transfer of organic matter (OM) to nearshore waters. However, the amount of terrestrial permafrost carbon and nitrogen as well as the OM quality in these deposits are still poorly quantified. Here, we characterise the sources and the quality of OM supplied to the Lena River at a rapidly eroding permafrost river shoreline cliff in the eastern part of the delta (Sobo-Sise Island). Our multi-proxy approach captures bulk elemental, molecular geochemical and carbon isotopic analyses of late Pleistocene Yedoma permafrost and Holocene cover deposits, discontinuously spanning the last ~52 ka. We show that the ancient permafrost exposed in the Sobo-Sise cliff has a high organic carbon content (mean of about 5 wt%).We found that the OM quality, which we define as the intrinsic potential to further transformation, decomposition, and mineralization, is also high as inferred by the lipid biomarker inventory. The oldest sediments stem from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 interstadial deposits (dated to 52 to 28 cal kyr BP) and is overlaid by Last Glacial MIS 2 (dated to 28 to 15 cal ka BP) and Holocene MIS 1 (dated to 7–0 cal ka BP) deposits. The relatively high average chain length (ACL) index of n-alkanes along the cliff profile indicates a predominant contribution of vascular plants to the OM composition. The elevated ratio of iso and anteiso-branched FAs relative to long chain (C ≥ 20) n-FAs in the interstadial MIS 3 and the interglacial MIS 1 deposits, suggests stronger microbial activity and consequently higher input of bacterial biomass during these climatically warmer periods. The overall high carbon preference index (CPI) and higher plant fatty acid (HPFA) values as well as high C / N ratios point to a good quality of the preserved OM and thus to a high potential of the OM for decomposition upon thaw. A decrease of HPFA values downwards along the profile probably indicates a relatively stronger OM decomposition in the oldest (MIS 3) deposits of the cliff.

Description: We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number.

Description: Rock magnetic and paleomagnetic results covering the past 30 ka were constructed from two sediment cores MSM33_856-1 (MSM33-55-1) and MSM33_855-1 (54-3) from the Black Sea. After the Mediterranean Sea water ingression, finely laminated organic-rich sapropelic sediments and coccolith oozes were deposited in the Black Sea since about 8.3 ka. Relict magnetic minerals in the Black Sea sarpoples are ferrous hemoilmenite, Fe-Mn and Fe-Cr spinels, and magnetite inclusions. In sediments deposited between about 14 and 8 ka, greigite and pyrite were formed in sediments because of the seawater penetration from overlying sediments after the seawater ingression. Before ~14 ka, the Black Sea sediments are dominated by detrital (titano-)magnetite minerals and the sporadically formed greigite which has SIRM/kLF ratios 〉 10 kAm-2. By comparison with detrital (titano-)magnetite samples between 20-30 ka, we found that relict magnetic mineral samples between 0-8.3 ka have similar behavior in recording the geomagnetic field. Moreover, the geomagnetic field variations reconstructed from the Black Sea sapropels are comparable with other validated regional datasets for the past 8.3 ka. The natural remanent magnetization (NRM) and the anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM) were measured with a 2G Enterprises 755 SRM (cryogenic) long-core magnetometer equipped with a sample holder for eight discrete samples at a separation of 20 cm. The magnetometer's in-line tri-axial alternating field (AF) demagnetizer was used to demagnetize the NRM and ARM of the samples. The NRM was measured after application of AF peak amplitudes of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 65, 80, and 100 mT. Directions of the characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) were determined by principle component analysis (PCA) according to Kirschvink (1980). The error range of the ChRM is given as the maximum angular deviation (MAD). The ARM was imparted along the samples' z-axis with a static field of 0.05 mT and an AF field of 100 mT. Demagnetization then was performed in steps of 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 65, and 80 mT. The median destructive field of the ARM (MDFARM) was determined to estimate the coercivity of the sediments. The slope of NRM versus ARM of common demagnetization steps was used to determine the relative paleointensity (RPI). In most cases, demagnetization steps from 20 to 65 mT were used to determine the RPI.

Description: This dataset provides data for four third-degree tidal constituents used in the publication of Sulzbach et al (2022). The tidal constituents provided are the 3M1, 3M3, 3N2 and 3L2 for 134 globally distributed stations. The tide information, such as the nodal modulations of these tides, are taken from Table 1 and Table S2 of Ray (2020). These tidal constants are estimated using the GESLA dataset (Woodworth et al 2014) following the approach presented in Piccioni et al (2019). This record is an add-on to the full TICON dataset (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.896587), using exactly the same data format and pre-processing. These steps include using tide gauge data that contains at least ten years of continuous data. Further, the dataset is restricted to only contain open ocean tide gauges by limiting it to a mean surrounding depth of tide gauges to be deeper than 500 meters in a 2-degree radius and excluding stations not native to the ocean domain of the employed tidal model TiME. Duplicate and closely neighbouring tide gauges, found within a 0.2-degree radius, are also removed from the dataset. This resulted in the availability of the four tidal constants for 134 tide gauges. The results are stored in one tab-separated text/ASCII file with 13 columns: 1. Latitude of the tide gauge station 2. Longitude of the tide gauge station 3. Constituent name 4. Amplitude (in cm) 5. Phase (in degrees) 6. Standard deviation of the amplitude (in cm) 7. Standard deviation of the phase (in degrees) 8. Percentage of missing observations 9. Total number of observations analyzed 10. Length of the maximum temporal gap found in the time series in days 11. Date of the first observation 12. Date of the last observation 13. Code that corresponds to the original source of the record TICON is a useful and easy-to-handle data set for tide model validation and allows the users to select the records according to the different criteria most suitable for their purposes. The options span from the choice of a geographical region to the use of single constituents or time periods.

Description: These datasets provide sedimentological data partly at annual resolution and an age model for the lateglacial part of (1) the ICDP sediment core 5017-1-A retrieved from the deep northern Dead Sea basin in 2010/11, and (2) for the Masada outcrop located at the southwestern shore of the Dead Sea sampled in 2018. The here investigated two sediment sections cover the last glacial-interglacial transition (ca. 17-11.5 ka BP) in the hydroclimatically sensitive Levant, when the water level of Lake Lisan – the precursor of the Dead Sea – dropped dramatically from its glacial high-stand to the Holocene low levels. Here, we analyze the interval between the last two gypsum units – the Upper Gypsum Unit (UGU) and the Additional Gypsum Unit (AGU) – which were also used to correlate the two sites. In the ICDP core this section is located between ~101 and 88.5 m sediment depth below lake floor and at Masada it encompasses the uppermost ~3.8 m sediments of the Lisan Formation, which form the terminal deposit at this site. Due to the lake level decline, the complete transition into the Holocene is only recorded in the ICDP core, while sedimentation at Masada terminates earlier. The microfacies was investigated by continuous thin section microscopy, while additional macroscopic information is provided from over- and underlying sediment sections. A revised chronology using age modelling in OxCal (Ramsey 2008; Ramsey 2009; Ramsey and Lee 2013) was developed for the ICDP core and a floating varve chronology was constructed at Masada. Using these new microfacies data from marginal (Masada) and deep-water (ICDP core) sediments, the hydroclimatic variability during the final stage of Lake Lisan can be reconstructed, which could provide important insights into the development of human sedentism in the region at this time.

Description: We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number.

Description: This dataset provides annually resolved microfacies data from ICDP core 5017-1-A, retrieved from the deep northern Dead Sea basin in 2010/11, for the last glacial-interglacial transition (ca. 17-11.5 ka BP). Sediments of the Lisan Formation were investigated between ~101 and 88.5 m sediment depth below lake floor by continuous thin section microscopy, while additional macroscopic information is provided from core catchers, as well as from over- and underlying sediment sections. Thin sections were prepared following the standard procedure by Brauer and Casanova (2001) that was adjusted for salty sediments. Thin section analyses were performed on overlapping large-scale thin sections using a Zeiss Axiolab pol microscope at magnifications of 50-400x. Microfacies analyses included varve counting and measurements of varve and sublayer thickness.

Description: Despite the importance of surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. In situ observational data of SEB components - useful for research and model validation - are collected at relatively few sites across the terrestrial Arctic, and not all available datasets are readily interoperable. Furthermore, the terrestrial Arctic consists of a diversity of vegetation types, which are generally not well represented in land surface schemes of current Earth system models. This dataset contains metadata information about surface energy budget components measured at 64 tundra and glacier sites 〉60° N across the Arctic. This information was taken from the open-access repositories FLUXNET, Ameriflux, AON, GC-Net and PROMICE. The contained datasets are associated with the publication vegetation type as an important predictor of the Arctic Summer Land Surface Energy Budget by Oehri et al. 2022, and intended to support research of surface energy budgets and their relationship with environmental conditions, in particular vegetation characteristics across the terrestrial Arctic.

Description: This dataset provides the results from Bayesian age depth modelling in OxCal for ICDP core 5017-1-A, retrieved from the deep northern Dead Sea basin in 2010/11, for the last glacial-interglacial transition between ~101 and 88.5 m sediment depth below lake floor (ca. 17-11.5 ka BP). The model was performed in OxCal v.4.4 using a P_Sequence (1,1,C(-2,2)) (Ramsey 2008; Ramsey 2009; Ramsey and Lee 2013) and includes three tephrochronological ages from Neugebauer et al. (2021) and three radiocarbon ages from Kitagawa et al. (2017).

Description: Despite the importance of surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. In situ observational data of SEB components - useful for research and model validation - are collected at relatively few sites across the terrestrial Arctic, and not all available datasets are readily interoperable. Furthermore, the terrestrial Arctic consists of a diversity of vegetation types, which are generally not well represented in land surface schemes of current Earth system models. This dataset comprises harmonized, standardized and aggregated in-situ observations of surface energy budget components measured at 64 sites on vegetated and glaciated sites north of 60° latitude, in the time period from 1994 till 2021. The surface energy budget components include net radiation, sensible heat flux, latent heat flux, ground heat flux, net shortwave radiation, net longwave radiation, surface temperature and albedo, which were aggregated to daily mean, minimum and maximum values from hourly and half-hourly measurements. Data were retrieved from the monitoring networks FLUXNET, AmeriFlux, AON, GC-Net and PROMICE.

Description: We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number.

Description: We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number.

Description: This dataset describes two 17 m long sediment cores taken from beneath two thermokarst lakes in the Yukechi Alas, Central Yakutia, Russia. The first core was taken from below an Alas thermokarst lake (YU-L7; 61.76397°N, 130.46442°E) and the second core below and Yedoma lake (YU-L15; 61.76086°N, 130.47466°E). The dataset presents biogeochemical and biomarker parameters of sediment cores YU-L7 and YU-L15. Biogeochemical analyses include total carbon (TC) content, total organic carbon (TOC) content, total nitrogen (TN) content. Biomarker parameters include the n-alkane concentration, average chain length (ACL), carbon preference index (CPI), brGDGT concentration, archaeol concentration and the isoGDGT-0 concentration. The n-alkanes were measured in the aliphatic fraction by gas chromatography-mass spectromety using a Trace GC Ultra coupled to a DSQ MS. The branched and isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers, as well as the dialkyl glycerol diether lipid (archaeol) were measured in the NSO fraction using a Shimadzu LC-10AD high-performance liquid chromatograph coupled to a Finnigan TSQ 7000 mass spectrometer via an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization interface. The pH soil is the sediment pH which was assessed by adding 6.12 mL of 0.01 M CaCl~2~ to ~2.5 g dried sediment and measuring with a Multilab 540 (WTW) at 20°C.

Description: We present sea ice temperature and salinity data from first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) relevant to the temporal development of sea ice permeability and brine drainage efficiency from the early growth phase in October 2019 to the onset of spring warming in May 2020. Our dataset was collected in the central Arctic Ocean during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) Expedition in 2019 to 2020. MOSAiC was an international transpolar drift expedition in which the German icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored into an ice floe to gain new insights into Arctic climate over a full annual cycle. In October 2019, RV Polarstern moored to an ice floe in the Siberian sector of the Arctic at 85 degrees north and 137 degrees east to begin the drift towards the North Pole and the Fram Strait via the Transpolar Drift Stream. The data presented here were collected during the first three legs of the expedition, so all the coring activities took place on the same floe. The end dates of legs 1, 2, and 3 were 13 December, 24 February, and 4 June, respectively. The dataset contributed to a baseline study entitled, Deciphering the properties of different Arctic ice types during the growth phase of the MOSAiC floes: Implications for future studies. The study highlights downward directed gas pathways in FYI and SYI by inferring sea ice permeability and potential brine release from several time series of temperature and salinity measurements. The physical properties presented in this paper lay the foundation for subsequent analyses on actual gas contents measured in the ice cores, as well as air-ice and ice-ocean gas fluxes. Sea ice cores were collected with a Kovacs Mark II 9 cm diameter corer. To measure ice temperatures, about 4.5 cm deep holes were drilled into the core (intervals varied by site and leg) . The temperatures were measured by a digital thermometer within minutes after the cores were retrieved. The ice cores were placed into pre-labelled plastic sleeves sealed at the bottom end. The ice cores were transported to RV Polarstern and stored in a -20 degrees Celsius freezer. Each of the cores was sub-sampled, melted at room temperature, and processed for salinity within one or two days. The practical salinity was estimated by measuring the electrical conductivity and temperature of the melted samples using a WTW Cond 3151 salinometer equipped with a Tetra-Con 325 four-electrode conductivity cell. The practical salinity represents the the salinity estimated from the electrical conductivity of the solution. The dataset also contains derived variables, including sea ice density, brine volume fraction, and the Rayleigh number.

Description: Despite the importance of surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. In-situ observational data of SEB components - useful for research and model validation - are collected at relatively few sites across the terrestrial Arctic, and not all available datasets are readily interoperable. Furthermore, the terrestrial Arctic consists of a diversity of vegetation types, which are generally not well represented in land surface schemes of current Earth system models. Therefore, we here provide four datasets comprising: 1. Harmonized, standardized and aggregated in situ observations of SEB components at 64 vegetated and glaciated sites north of 60° latitude, in the time period 1994-2021 2. A description of all study sites and associated environmental conditions, including the vegetation types, which correspond to the classification of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM, Raynolds et al. 2019). 3. Data generated in a literature synthesis from 358 study sites on vegetation or glacier (〉=60°N latitude) covered by 148 publications. 4. Metadata, including data contributor information and measurement heights of variables associated with Oehri et al. 2022.

Description: This dataset provides lithological data from ICDP core 5017-1-A, retrieved from the deep northern Dead Sea basin in 2010/11, for the last glacial-interglacial transition (ca. 17-11.5 ka BP). The microfacies of the Lisan Formation was investigated between ~101 and 88.5 m sediment depth below lake floor by continuous thin section microscopy, while additional macroscopic information is provided from core catchers, as well as from over- and underlying sediment sections. Thin sections were prepared following the standard procedure by Brauer and Casanova (2001) that was adjusted for salty sediments. Thin section analyses were performed on overlapping large-scale thin sections using a Zeiss Axiolab pol microscope at magnifications of 50-400x.

Description: This dataset contains observations of water discharge rates and concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) from a polygonal tundra site in the Lena River Delta, Russia. This dataset also contains lateral carbon fluxes of DOC and DIC that were estimated from these observations. Additionally, this dataset contains vertical fluxes of carbon dioxide and methane from the same study site. All observations were recorded on Samoylov Island (N 72.377188, E 126.495144) in the summer of 2014. The abbreviations A1, A2 and B refer to three outflows on the island where the hydrological parameters were observed (A1: N 72.379991, E 126.480886; A2: N 72.380134, E 126.481433; B: N 72.381348, E 126.483482). All outflows were approximately 10 meters. More information can be found in https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3863-2022.

Description: Despite the importance of surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. In situ observational data of SEB components - useful for research and model validation - are collected at relatively few sites across the terrestrial Arctic, and not all available datasets are readily interoperable. Furthermore, the terrestrial Arctic consists of a diversity of vegetation types, which are generally not well represented in land surface schemes of current Earth system models. This dataset describes the environmental conditions for 64 tundra and glacier sites (〉=60°N latitude) across the Arctic, for which in situ measurements of surface energy budget components were harmonized (see Oehri et al. 2022). These environmental conditions are (proxies of) potential drivers of SEB-components and could therefore be called SEB-drivers. The associated environmental conditions, include the vegetation types graminoid tundra, prostrate dwarf-shrub tundra, erect-shrub tundra, wetland complexes, barren complexes (≤ 40% horizontal plant cover), boreal peat bogs and glacier. These land surface types (apart from boreal peat bogs) correspond to the main classification units of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM, Raynolds et al. 2019). For each site, additional climatic and biophysical variables are available, including cloud cover, snow cover duration, permafrost characteristics, climatic conditions and topographic conditions.

Description: This dataset contains over 30 marine Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) profiles taken in September 2021 around Tuktoyaktuk Island (NWT / Beaufort Sea, Canada). The measurements were part of the “Mackenzie Delta Permafrost Field Campaign” (mCan2021) within the “Modular Observation solutions for Earth Systems” (MOSES) program. The collected profiles consist of numerous adjacent vertical soundings in a (quasi-symmetric) reciprocal Wenner-Schlumberger array, using a floating cable towed behind a boat. GPS records along the electrode streamer were taken, enabling the improvement of pre- processing by excluding measurements for which the cable was curved and electrode positions deviated too widely. The aim of the study was to determine the depth of the submarine permafrost. Cleaned data is provided in csv format.

Description: This collection contains permafrost related measurements in the Mackenzie Delta, NWT, Canada from the MOSES (Modular Observation Solutions for Earth Systems) field campaign in September 2021. The field campaign was focused on three subaquatic sites: a small thermokarst lake along the ITH just south of Trail Valley Creek, "Lake 3", an elongated lake with known methane occurence in the outer Mackenzie Delta, "Swiss Cheese Lake", and north and south of Tuktoyaktuk Island. At "Swiss Cheese Lake", we measured methane and CO2 concentrations in surface water and in the air above the lake, lake bed temperatures and detailed bathymetry. At "Lake 3" we measured active layer thickness on the lake banks, lake bed temperatures, and detailed bathymetry, as well as an ERT survey to estimate the talik depth below the lake. North and south of Tuktoyaktuk Island, we measured active layer thickness and sea bed temperatures and did an extensive ERT survey to obtain the depth of the subsea permafrost table. An additional passive seismic survey was carried out and the data is available at https://doi.org/10.5880/GIPP.202199.1.

Description: This dataset contains seven Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) profiles taken in September 2021 at “Lake 3”, a thermokarst lake near the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk-Highway (ITH), about 50 km north of Inuvik (NWT, Canada). The measurements were part of the “Mackenzie Delta Permafrost Field Campaign” (mCan2021) within the “Modular Observation solutions for Earth Systems” (MOSES) program. The collected profiles consist of numerous adjacent vertical soundings in a (quasi-symmetric) reciprocal Wenner-Schlumberger array. In addition to surveys on the lake, using a floating cable towed behind a boat, two “amphibian” profiles were taken. Starting as purely terrestrial surveys using metal spike electrodes, the cable was then moved towards the lake with some of the electrodes floating on the water surface, and some still on land. The aim of the study was to determine permafrost properties on the land, to detect a possible talik beneath the lake and to especially be able to infer the transition between the two below the shoreline.

Description: Changes in Southern Ocean export production have broad biogeochemical and climatic implications. Specifically, iron fertilization likely increased subantarctic nutrient utilization and enhanced the efficiency of the biological pump during glacials. However, past export production in the subantarctic Southeast Pacific is poorly documented, and its connection to Fe fertilization, potentially related to Patagonian Ice Sheet dynamics is unknown. We report on biological productivity changes over the past 400 ka, based on a combination of 230Thxs-normalized and stratigraphy-based mass accumulation rates of biogenic barium, organic carbon, biogenic opal, and calcium carbonate as indicators of paleo-export production in a sediment core upstream of the Drake Passage. In addition, we use fluxes of iron and lithogenic material as proxies for terrigenous matter, and thus potential micronutrient supply. Stratigraphy-based mass accumulation rates are strongly influenced by bottom-current dynamics, which result in variable sediment focussing or winnowing at our site. Carbonate is virtually absent in the core, except during peak interglacial intervals of the Holocene, and Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 5 and 11, likely caused by transient decreases in carbonate dissolution. All other proxies suggest that export production increased during most glacial periods, coinciding with high iron fluxes. Such augmented glacial iron fluxes at the core site were most likely derived from glaciogenic input from the Patagonian Ice Sheet promoting the growth of phytoplankton. Additionally, glacial export production peaks are also consistent with northward shifts of the Subantarctic and Polar Fronts, which positioned our site south of the Subantarctic Front and closer to silicic acid-rich waters of the Polar Frontal Zone, as well as a with a decrease in the diatom utilization of Si relative to nitrate under Fe-replete conditions. However, glacial export production near the Drake Passage was lower than in the Atlantic and Indian sectors of the Southern Ocean, which may relate to complete consumption of silicic acid in the study area. Our results underline the importance of micro-nutrient fertilization through lateral terrigenous input from South America rather than aeolian transport, and exemplify the role of frontal shifts and nutrient limitation for past productivity changes in the Pacific entrance to the Drake Passage.

Description: We developed a new version of the Alfred Wegener Institute Climate Model (AWI-CM3), which has higher skills in representing the observed climatology and better computational efficiency than its predecessors. Its ocean component FESOM2 has the multi-resolution functionality typical for unstructured-mesh models while still featuring a scalability and efficiency similar to regular-grid models. The atmospheric component OpenIFS (CY43R3) enables the use of latest developments in the numerical weather prediction community in climate sciences. In this paper we describe the coupling of the model components and evaluate the model performance on a variable resolution (25–125 km) ocean mesh and a 61 km atmosphere grid, which serves as a reference and starting point for other on-going research activities with AWI-CM3. This includes the exploration of high and variable resolution, the development of a full Earth System Model as well as the creation of a new sea ice prediction system. At this early development stage and with the given coarse to medium resolutions, the model already features above CMIP6-average skills in representing the climatology and competitive model throughput. Finally we identify remaining biases and suggest further improvements to be made to the model.

Description: Arctic river deltas and deltaic near-shore zones represent important land–ocean transition zones influencing sediment dynamics and nutrient fluxes from permafrost-affected terrestrial ecosystems into the coastal Arctic Ocean. To accurately model fluvial carbon and freshwater export from rapidly changing river catchments as well as assess impacts of future change on the Arctic shelf and coastal ecosystems, we need to understand the sea floor characteristics and topographic variety of the coastal zones. To date, digital bathymetrical data from the poorly accessible, shallow, and large areas of the eastern Siberian Arctic shelves are sparse. We have digitized bathymetrical information for nearly 75 000 locations from large-scale (1:25 000–1:500 000) current and historical nautical maps of the Lena Delta and the Kolyma Gulf region in northeastern Siberia. We present the first detailed and seamless digital models of coastal zone bathymetry for both delta and gulf regions in 50 and 200 m spatial resolution. We validated the resulting bathymetry layers using a combination of our own water depth measurements and a collection of available depth measurements, which showed a strong correlation (r〉0.9). Our bathymetrical models will serve as an input for a high-resolution coupled hydrodynamic–ecosystem model to better quantify fluvial and coastal carbon fluxes to the Arctic Ocean, but they may be useful for a range of other studies related to Arctic delta and near-shore dynamics such as modeling of submarine permafrost, near-shore sea ice, or shelf sediment transport. The new digital high-resolution bathymetry products are available on the PANGAEA data set repository for the Lena Delta (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.934045; Fuchs et al., 2021a) and Kolyma Gulf region (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.934049; Fuchs et al., 2021b), respectively. Likewise, the depth validation data are available on PANGAEA as well (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.933187; Fuchs et al., 2021c).

Description: Data from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition allowed us to investigate the temporal dynamics of snowfall, snow accumulation and erosion in great detail for almost the whole accumulation season (November 2019 to May 2020). We computed cumulative snow water equivalent (SWE) over the sea ice based on snow depth and density retrievals from a SnowMicroPen and approximately weekly measured snow depths along fixed transect paths. We used the derived SWE from the snow cover to compare with precipitation sensors installed during MOSAiC. The data were also compared with ERA5 reanalysis snowfall rates for the drift track. We found an accumulated snow mass of 38 m SWE between the end of October 2019 and end of April 2020. The initial SWE over first-year ice relative to second-year ice increased from 50 % to 90 % by end of the investigation period. Further, we found that the Vaisala Present Weather Detector 22, an optical precipitation sensor, and installed on a railing on the top deck of research vessel Polarstern, was least affected by blowing snow and showed good agreements with SWE retrievals along the transect. On the contrary, the OTT Pluvio2 pluviometer and the OTT Parsivel2 laser disdrometer were largely affected by wind and blowing snow, leading to too high measured precipitation rates. These are largely reduced when eliminating drifting snow periods in the comparison. ERA5 reveals good timing of the snowfall events and good agreement with ground measurements with an overestimation tendency. Retrieved snowfall from the ship-based Ka-band ARM zenith radar shows good agreements with SWE of the snow cover and differences comparable to those of ERA5. Based on the results, we suggest the Ka-band radar-derived snowfall as an upper limit and the present weather detector on RV Polarstern as a lower limit of a cumulative snowfall range. Based on these findings, we suggest a cumulative snowfall of 72 to 107 m and a precipitation mass loss of the snow cover due to erosion and sublimation as between 47 % and 68 %, for the time period between 31 October 2019 and 26 April 2020. Extending this period beyond available snow cover measurements, we suggest a cumulative snowfall of 98-114 m.

Description: Organic carbon (OC) stored in Arctic permafrost represents one of Earth's largest and most vulnerable terrestrial carbon pools. Amplified climate warming across the Arctic results in widespread permafrost thaw. Permafrost deposits exposed at river cliffs and coasts are particularly susceptible to thawing processes. Accelerating erosion of terrestrial permafrost along shorelines leads to increased transfer of organic matter (OM) to nearshore waters. However, the amount of terrestrial permafrost carbon and nitrogen as well as the OM quality in these deposits are still poorly quantified. Here, we characterise the sources and the quality of OM supplied to the Lena River at a rapidly eroding permafrost river shoreline cliff in the eastern part of the delta (Sobo-Sise Island). Our multi-proxy approach captures bulk elemental, molecular geochemical and carbon isotopic analyses of late Pleistocene Yedoma permafrost and Holocene cover deposits, discontinuously spanning the last ~52 ka. We show that the ancient permafrost exposed in the Sobo-Sise cliff has a high organic carbon content (mean of about 5 wt%).We found that the OM quality, which we define as the intrinsic potential to further transformation, decomposition, and mineralization, is also high as inferred by the lipid biomarker inventory. The oldest sediments stem from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 interstadial deposits (dated to 52 to 28 cal kyr BP) and is overlaid by Last Glacial MIS 2 (dated to 28 to 15 cal ka BP) and Holocene MIS 1 (dated to 7–0 cal ka BP) deposits. The relatively high average chain length (ACL) index of n-alkanes along the cliff profile indicates a predominant contribution of vascular plants to the OM composition. The elevated ratio of iso and anteiso-branched FAs relative to long chain (C ≥ 20) n-FAs in the interstadial MIS 3 and the interglacial MIS 1 deposits, suggests stronger microbial activity and consequently higher input of bacterial biomass during these climatically warmer periods. The overall high carbon preference index (CPI) and higher plant fatty acid (HPFA) values as well as high C / N ratios point to a good quality of the preserved OM and thus to a high potential of the OM for decomposition upon thaw. A decrease of HPFA values downwards along the profile probably indicates a relatively stronger OM decomposition in the oldest (MIS 3) deposits of the cliff.

Description: The diagnosis of the conservation state of monumental structures from constraints to the spatial distribution of their physical properties on shallow and inner materials represents one of the key objectives in the application of non-invasive techniques. In situ, CRP and 3D ultrasonic tomography can provide an effective coverage of stone materials in space and time. The intrinsic characteristics of the materials that make up a monumental structure and affect the two properties (i.e., reflectivity, longitudinal velocity) through the above methods substantially differ. Consequently, the content of their information is mainly complementary rather than redundant. In this study we present the integrated application of different non-destructive techniques i.e., Close Range Photogrammetry (CRP), and low frequency (24 KHz) ultrasonic tomography complemented by petrographycal analysis based essentially on Optical Microscopy (OM). This integrated methodology has been applied to a Carrara marble column of the Basilica of San Saturnino, in Byzantine-Proto-Romanesque style, which is part of the Paleo Christian complex of the V-VI century. This complex also includes the adjacent Christian necropolis in the square of San Cosimo in the city of Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. The column under study is made of bare material dating back probably to the first century A.D., it was subjected to various traumas due to disassembly and transport to the site, including damage caused by the close blast of a WWII fragmentation bomb. High resolution 3D modelling of the studied artifact was computed starting from the integration of proximal sensing techniques such as CRP based on Structure from Motion (SfM), with which information about the geometrical anomalies and reflectivity of the investigated marble column surface was obtained. On the other hand, the inner parts of the studied body were successfully inspected in a non-invasive way by computing the velocity pattern of the ultrasonic signal through the investigated materials using 3D ultrasonic tomography. This technique gives information on the elastic properties of the material related with mechanical properties and a number of factors, such as presence of fractures, voids, and flaws. Extracting information on such factors from the elastic wave velocity using 3D tomography provides a non-invasive approach to analyse the property changes of the inner material of the ancient column. The integrated application of in situ CRP and ultrasonic techniques provides a full 3D high resolution model of the investigated artifact. This model enhanced by the knowledge of the petrographic characteristics of the materials, improves the diagnostic process and affords reliable information on the state of conservation of the materials used in the construction processes of the studied monumental structure. The integrated use of the non-destructive techniques described above also provides suitable data for a possible restoration and future preservation.

Description: Copernicus

Description: Published

Description: On line

Description: 5T. Sismologia, geofisica e geologia per l'ingegneria sismica

Description: Originating from the boreal forest and often transported over large distances, driftwood characterises many Arctic coastlines. Here we present a combined assessment of radiocarbon (14C) and dendrochronological (ring width) age estimates of driftwood samples to constrain the progradation of two Holocene beach-ridge systems near the Lena Delta in the Siberian Arctic (Laptev Sea). Our data show that the 14C ages obtained on syndepositional driftwood from beach deposits yield surprisingly coherent chronologies for the coastal evolution of the field sites. The dendrochronological analysis of wood from modern driftlines revealed the origin and recent delivery of the wood from the Lena River catchments. This finding suggests that the duration transport lies within the uncertainty of state-of-the-art 14C dating and thus substantiates the validity of age indication obtained from driftwood. This observation will help to better understand changes in similar coastal environments, and to improve our knowledge about the response of coastal systems to past climate and sea-level changes.

Description: Earth system and climate modelling involves the simulation of processes on a wide range of scales and within and across various compartments of the Earth system. In practice, component models are often developed independently by different research groups, adapted by others to their special interests and then combined using a dedicated coupling software. This procedure not only leads to a strongly growing number of available versions of model components and coupled setups but also to model- and high-performance computing (HPC)-system-dependent ways of obtaining, configuring, building and operating them. Therefore, implementing these Earth system models (ESMs) can be challenging and extremely time consuming, especially for less experienced modellers or scientists aiming to use different ESMs as in the case of intercomparison projects. To assist researchers and modellers by reducing avoidable complexity, we developed the ESM-Tools software, which provides a standard way for downloading, configuring, compiling, running and monitoring different models on a variety of HPC systems. It should be noted that ESM-Tools is not a coupling software itself but a workflow and infrastructure management tool to provide access to increase usability of already existing components and coupled setups. As coupled ESMs are technically the more challenging tasks, we will focus on coupled setups, always implying that stand-alone models can benefit in the same way. With ESM-Tools, the user is only required to provide a short script consisting of only the experiment-specific definitions, while the software executes all the phases of a simulation in the correct order. The software, which is well documented and easy to install and use, currently supports four ocean models, three atmosphere models, two biogeochemistry models, an ice sheet model, an isostatic adjustment model, a hydrology model and a land-surface model. Compared to previous versions, ESM-Tools has lately been entirely recoded in a high-level programming language (Python) and provides researchers with an even more user-friendly interface for Earth system modelling. ESM-Tools was developed within the framework of the Advanced Earth System Model Capacity project, supported by the Helmholtz Association.

Description: Numerous studies have addressed the possible existence of large floating ice sheets in the glacial Arctic Ocean from theoretical, modelling, or seafloor morphology perspectives. Here, we add evidence from the sediment record that support the existence of such freshwater ice caps in certain intervals, and we discuss their implications for possible non-linear and rapid behaviour of such a system in the high latitudes. We present sedimentary activities of 230Th together with 234U/238U ratios, the concentrations of manganese, sulphur and calcium in the context of lithological information and records of microfossils and their isotope composition. New analyses (PS51/038, PS72/396) and a re-analysis of existing marine sediment records (PS1533, PS1235, PS2185, PS2200, amongst others) in view of the naturally occurring radionuclide 230Thex and, where available, 10Be from the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas reveal the widespread occurrence of intervals with a specific geochemical signature. The pattern of these parameters in a pan-Arctic view can best be explained when assuming the repeated presence of freshwater in frozen and liquid form across large parts of the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas. Based on the sedimentary evidence and known environmental constraints at the time, we develop a glacial scenario that explains how these ice sheets, together with eustatic sea-level changes, may have affected the past oceanography of the Arctic Ocean in a fundamental way that must have led to a drastic and non-linear response to external forcing. This concept offers a possibility to explain and to some extent reconcile contrasting age models for the Late Pleistocene in the Arctic Ocean. Our view, if adopted, offers a coherent dating approach across the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas, linked to events outside the Arctic.

Description: The modeling of paleoclimate, using physically based tools, is increasingly seen as a strong out-of-sample test of the models that are used for the projection of future climate changes. New to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) is the Tier 1 Last Interglacial experiment for 127 000 years ago (lig127k), designed to address the climate responses to stronger orbital forcing than the midHolocene experiment, using the same state-of-the-art models as for the future and following a common experimental protocol. Here we present a first analysis of a multi-model ensemble of 17 climate models, all of which have completed the CMIP6 DECK (Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima) experiments. The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of these models varies from 1.8 to 5.6 ∘C. The seasonal character of the insolation anomalies results in strong summer warming over the Northern Hemisphere continents in the lig127k ensemble as compared to the CMIP6 piControl and much-reduced minimum sea ice in the Arctic. The multi-model results indicate enhanced summer monsoonal precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere and reductions in the Southern Hemisphere. These responses are greater in the lig127k than the CMIP6 midHolocene simulations as expected from the larger insolation anomalies at 127 than 6 ka. New synthesis for surface temperature and precipitation, targeted for 127 ka, have been developed for comparison to the multi-model ensemble. The lig127k model ensemble and data reconstructions are in good agreement for summer temperature anomalies over Canada, Scandinavia, and the North Atlantic and for precipitation over the Northern Hemisphere continents. The model–data comparisons and mismatches point to further study of the sensitivity of the simulations to uncertainties in the boundary conditions and of the uncertainties and sparse coverage in current proxy reconstructions. The CMIP6–Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP4) lig127k simulations, in combination with the proxy record, improve our confidence in future projections of monsoons, surface temperature, and Arctic sea ice, thus providing a key target for model evaluation and optimization.

Description: In order to investigate the impact of spatial resolution on the discrepancy between simulated δ18O and observed δ18O in Greenland ice cores, regional climate simulations are performed with the isotope-enabled regional climate model (RCM) COSMO_iso. For this purpose, isotope-enabled general circulation model (GCM) simulations with the ECHAM5-wiso general circulation model (GCM) under present-day conditions and the MPI-ESM-wiso GCM under mid-Holocene conditions are dynamically downscaled with COSMO_iso for the Arctic region. The capability of COSMO_iso to reproduce observed isotopic ratios in Greenland ice cores for these two periods is investigated by comparing the simulation results to measured δ18O ratios from snow pit samples, Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) stations and ice cores. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a mid-Holocene isotope-enabled RCM simulation is performed for the Arctic region. Under present-day conditions, a dynamical downscaling of ECHAM5-wiso (1.1◦ × 1.1◦) with COSMO_iso to a spatial resolution of 50km improves the agreement with the measured δ18O ratios for 14 of 19 observational data sets. A further increase in the spatial resolution to 7km does not yield substantial improvements except for the coastal areas with its complex terrain. For the mid-Holocene, a fully coupled MPI-ESM-wiso time slice simulation is downscaled with COSMO_iso to a spatial resolution of 50km. In the mid-Holocene, MPI-ESM-wiso already agrees well with observations in Greenland and a downscaling with COSMO_iso does not further improve the model–data agreement. Despite this lack of improvement in model biases, the study shows that in both periods, observed δ18O values at measurement sites constitute isotope ratios which are mainly within the subgrid-scale variability of the global ECHAM5-wiso and MPI-ESM-wiso simulation results. The correct δ18O ratios are consequently not resolved in the GCM simulation results and need to be extracted by a refinement with an RCM. In this context, the RCM simulations provide a spatial δ18O distribution by which the effects of local uncertainties can be taken into account in the comparison between point measurements and model outputs. Thus, an isotope-enabled GCM–RCM model chain with realistically implemented fractionating processes constitutes a useful supplement to reconstruct regional paleo-climate conditions during the mid-Holocene in Greenland. Such model chains might also be applied to reveal the full potential of GCMs in other regions and climate periods, in which large deviations relative to observed isotope ratios are simulated.

Description: Proxy climate records are an invaluable source of information about the earth’s climate prior to the instrumental record. The temporal- and spatial-coverage of records continues to increase, however, these records of past climate are associated with significant uncertainties due to non-climate processes that influence the recorded and measured proxy values. Generally, these uncertainties are timescale-dependent and correlated in time. Accounting for structure in the errors is essential to providing realistic error estimates for smoothed or stacked records, detection of anomalies and identifying trends, but this structure is seldom accounted for. In the first of these companion articles we outlined a theoretical framework for handling proxy uncertainties by deriving the power spectrum of proxy error components from which it is possible to obtain timescale-dependent error estimates. Here in part II, we demonstrate the practical application of this theoretical framework using the example of marine sediment cores. We consider how to obtain estimates for the required parameters and give examples of the application of this approach for typical marine sediment proxy records. Our new approach of estimating and providing timescale-dependent proxy errors overcomes the limitations of simplistic single value error estimates. We aim to provide the conceptual basis for a more quantitative use of paleo-records for applications such as model-data comparison, regional and global synthesis of past climate states and data assimilation.

Description: The mid-Pliocene warm period (mPWP; ∼3.2 million years ago) is seen as the most recent time period characterized by a warm climate state, with similar to modern geography and ∼400 ppmv atmospheric CO2 concentration, and is therefore often considered an interesting analogue for near-future climate projections. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions indicate higher surface temperatures, decreasing tropical deserts, and a more humid climate in West Africa characterized by a strengthened West African Monsoon (WAM). Using model results from the second phase of the Pliocene Modelling Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP2) ensemble, we analyse changes of the WAM rainfall during the mPWP by comparing them with the control simulations for the pre-industrial period. The ensemble shows a robust increase in the summer rainfall over West Africa and the Sahara region, with an average increase of 2.5 mm/d, contrasted by a rainfall decrease over the equatorial Atlantic. An anomalous warming of the Sahara and deepening of the Saharan Heat Low, seen in 〉90 % of the models, leads to a strengthening of the WAM and an increased monsoonal flow into the continent. A similar warming of the Sahara is seen in future projections using both phase 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3 and CMIP5). Though previous studies of future projections indicate a west–east drying–wetting contrast over the Sahel, PlioMIP2 simulations indicate a uniform rainfall increase in that region in warm climates characterized by increasing greenhouse gas forcing. We note that this effect will further depend on the long-term response of the vegetation to the CO2 forcing.

Description: The mid-Pliocene warm period (3.264–3.025 Ma) is the most recent geological period during which atmospheric CO2 levels were similar to recent historical values (∼400 ppm). Several proxy reconstructions for the mid-Pliocene show highly reduced zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradients in the tropical Pacific Ocean, indicating an El Niño-like mean state. However, past modelling studies do not show these highly reduced gradients. Efforts to understand mid-Pliocene climate dynamics have led to the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP). Results from the first phase (PlioMIP1) showed clear El Niño variability (albeit significantly reduced) and did not show the greatly reduced time-mean zonal SST gradient suggested by some of the proxies. In this work, we study El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability in the PlioMIP2 ensemble, which consists of additional global coupled climate models and updated boundary conditions compared to PlioMIP1. We quantify ENSO amplitude, period, spatial structure and “flavour”, as well as the tropical Pacific annual mean state in mid-Pliocene and pre-industrial simulations. Results show a reduced ENSO amplitude in the model-ensemble mean (−24 %) with respect to the pre-industrial, with 15 out of 17 individual models showing such a reduction. Furthermore, the spectral power of this variability considerably decreases in the 3–4-year band. The spatial structure of the dominant empirical orthogonal function shows no particular change in the patterns of tropical Pacific variability in the model-ensemble mean, compared to the pre-industrial. Although the time-mean zonal SST gradient in the equatorial Pacific decreases for 14 out of 17 models (0.2 ∘C reduction in the ensemble mean), there does not seem to be a correlation with the decrease in ENSO amplitude. The models showing the most “El Niño-like” mean state changes show a similar ENSO amplitude to that in the pre-industrial reference, while models showing more “La Niña-like” mean state changes generally show a large reduction in ENSO variability. The PlioMIP2 results show a reasonable agreement with both time-mean proxies indicating a reduced zonal SST gradient and reconstructions indicating a reduced, or similar, ENSO variability.

Description: The mid-Pliocene (∼3 Ma) is one of the most recent warm periods with high CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and resulting high temperatures, and it is often cited as an analog for near-term future climate change. Here, we apply a moisture budget analysis to investigate the response of the large-scale hydrological cycle at low latitudes within a 13-model ensemble from the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project Phase 2 (PlioMIP2). The results show that increased atmospheric moisture content within the mid-Pliocene ensemble (due to the thermodynamic effect) results in wetter conditions over the deep tropics, i.e., the Pacific intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and the Maritime Continent, and drier conditions over the subtropics. Note that the dynamic effect plays a more important role than the thermodynamic effect in regional precipitation minus evaporation (PmE) changes (i.e., northward ITCZ shift and wetter northern Indian Ocean). The thermodynamic effect is offset to some extent by a dynamic effect involving a northward shift of the Hadley circulation that dries the deep tropics and moistens the subtropics in the Northern Hemisphere (i.e., the subtropical Pacific). From the perspective of Earth's energy budget, the enhanced southward cross-equatorial atmospheric transport (0.22 PW), induced by the hemispheric asymmetries of the atmospheric energy, favors an approximately 1∘ northward shift of the ITCZ. The shift of the ITCZ reorganizes atmospheric circulation, favoring a northward shift of the Hadley circulation. In addition, the Walker circulation consistently shifts westward within PlioMIP2 models, leading to wetter conditions over the northern Indian Ocean. The PlioMIP2 ensemble highlights that an imbalance of interhemispheric atmospheric energy during the mid-Pliocene could have led to changes in the dynamic effect, offsetting the thermodynamic effect and, hence, altering mid-Pliocene hydroclimate.

Description: Due to its dryness, the subtropical free troposphere plays a critical role in the radiative balance of the Earth's climate system. But the complex interactions of the dynamical and physical processes controlling the variability in the moisture budget of this sensitive region of the subtropical atmosphere are still not fully understood. Stable water isotopes can provide important information about several of the latter processes, namely subsidence drying, turbulent mixing, and dry and moist convective moistening. In this study, we use high-resolution simulations of the isotope-enabled version of the regional weather and climate prediction model of the Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling (COSMOiso) to investigate predominant moisture transport pathways in the Canary Islands region in the eastern subtropical North Atlantic. Comparison of the simulated isotope signals with multi-platform isotope observations (aircraft, ground- and space-based remote sensing) from a field campaign in summer 2013 shows that COSMOiso can reproduce the observed variability of stable water vapour isotopes on timescales of hours to days, thus allowing us to study the mechanisms that control the subtropical free-tropospheric humidity. Changes in isotopic signals along backward trajectories from the Canary Islands region reveal the physical processes behind the synoptic-scale isotope variability. We identify four predominant moisture transport pathways of mid-tropospheric air, each with distinct isotopic signatures: - air parcels originating from the convective boundary layer of the Saharan heat low (SHL) – these are characterised by a homogeneous isotopic composition with a particularly high δD (median mid-tropospheric δD=−122‰), which results from dry convective mixing of low-level moisture of diverse origin advected into the SHL; - air parcels originating from the free troposphere above the SHL – although experiencing the largest changes in humidity and δD during their subsidence over West Africa, these air parcels typically have lower δD values (median δD=−148‰) than air parcels originating from the boundary layer of the SHL; - air parcels originating from outside the SHL region, typically descending from tropical upper levels south of the SHL, which are often affected by moist convective injections from mesoscale convective systems in the Sahel – their isotopic composition is much less enriched in heavy isotopes (median δD=−175‰) than those from the SHL region; - air parcels subsiding from the upper-level extratropical North Atlantic – this pathway leads to the driest and most depleted conditions (median δD=−255‰) in the middle troposphere near the Canary Islands. The alternation of these transport pathways explains the observed high variability in humidity and δD on synoptic timescales to a large degree. We further show that the four different transport pathways are related to specific large-scale flow conditions. In particular, distinct differences in the location of the North African mid-level anticyclone and of extratropical Rossby wave patterns occur between the four transport pathways. Overall, this study demonstrates that the adopted Lagrangian isotope perspective enhances our understanding of air mass transport and mixing and offers a sound interpretation of the free-tropospheric variability of specific humidity and isotope composition on timescales of hours to days in contrasting atmospheric conditions over the eastern subtropical North Atlantic.

Description: The Italian earthquake waveform data are collected here in a dataset suited for machine learning analysis (ML) applications. The dataset consists of nearly 1.2 million three-component (3C) waveform traces from about 50 000 earthquakes and more than 130 000 noise 3C waveform traces, for a total of about 43 000 h of data and an average of 21 3C traces provided per event. The earthquake list is based on the Italian Seismic Bulletin (http://terremoti.ingv.it/bsi, last access: 15 February 2020​​​​​​​) of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia between January 2005 and January 2020, and it includes events in the magnitude range between 0.0 and 6.5. The waveform data have been recorded primarily by the Italian National Seismic Network (network code IV) and include both weak- (HH, EH channels) and strong-motion (HN channels) recordings. All the waveform traces have a length of 120 s, are sampled at 100 Hz, and are provided both in counts and ground motion physical units after deconvolution of the instrument transfer functions. The waveform dataset is accompanied by metadata consisting of more than 100 parameters providing comprehensive information on the earthquake source, the recording stations, the trace features, and other derived quantities. This rich set of metadata allows the users to target the data selection for their own purposes. Much of these metadata can be used as labels in ML analysis or for other studies. The dataset, assembled in HDF5 format, is available at http://doi.org/10.13127/instance (Michelini et al., 2021).

Description: Published

Description: 5509–5544

Description: 4T. Sismicità dell'Italia

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Methane emissions from boreal and arctic wetlands, lakes, and rivers are expected to increase in response to warming and associated permafrost thaw. However, the lack of appropriate land cover datasets for scaling field-measured methane emissions to circumpolar scales has contributed to a large uncertainty for our understanding of present-day and future methane emissions. Here we present the Boreal–Arctic Wetland and Lake Dataset (BAWLD), a land cover dataset based on an expert assessment, extrapolated using random forest modelling from available spatial datasets of climate, topography, soils, permafrost conditions, vegetation, wetlands, and surface water extents and dynamics. In BAWLD, we estimate the fractional coverage of five wetland, seven lake, and three river classes within 0.5 × 0.5∘ grid cells that cover the northern boreal and tundra biomes (17 % of the global land surface). Land cover classes were defined using criteria that ensured distinct methane emissions among classes, as indicated by a co-developed comprehensive dataset of methane flux observations. In BAWLD, wetlands occupied 3.2 × 106 km2 (14 % of domain) with a 95 % confidence interval between 2.8 and 3.8 × 106 km2. Bog, fen, and permafrost bog were the most abundant wetland classes, covering ∼ 28 % each of the total wetland area, while the highest-methane-emitting marsh and tundra wetland classes occupied 5 % and 12 %, respectively. Lakes, defined to include all lentic open-water ecosystems regardless of size, covered 1.4 × 106 km2 (6 % of domain). Low-methane-emitting large lakes (〉10 km2) and glacial lakes jointly represented 78 % of the total lake area, while high-emitting peatland and yedoma lakes covered 18 % and 4 %, respectively. Small (〈0.1 km2) glacial, peatland, and yedoma lakes combined covered 17 % of the total lake area but contributed disproportionally to the overall spatial uncertainty in lake area with a 95 % confidence interval between 0.15 and 0.38 × 106 km2. Rivers and streams were estimated to cover 0.12  × 106 km2 (0.5 % of domain), of which 8 % was associated with high-methane-emitting headwaters that drain organic-rich landscapes. Distinct combinations of spatially co-occurring wetland and lake classes were identified across the BAWLD domain, allowing for the mapping of “wetscapes” that have characteristic methane emission magnitudes and sensitivities to climate change at regional scales. With BAWLD, we provide a dataset which avoids double-accounting of wetland, lake, and river extents and which includes confidence intervals for each land cover class. As such, BAWLD will be suitable for many hydrological and biogeochemical modelling and upscaling efforts for the northern boreal and arctic region, in particular those aimed at improving assessments of current and future methane emissions. Data are freely available at https://doi.org/10.18739/A2C824F9X (Olefeldt et al., 2021).

Description: Lakes in permafrost regions are dynamiclandscape components and play an important role for climatechange feedbacks. Lake processes such as mineralizationand flocculation of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), oneof the main carbon fractions in lakes, contribute to thegreenhouse effect and are part of the global carbon cycle.These processes are in the focus of climate research, butstudies so far are limited to specific study regions. Inour synthesis, we analyzed 2167 water samples from 1833lakes across the Arctic in permafrost regions of Alaska,Canada, Greenland, and Siberia to provide first pan-Arcticinsights for linkages between DOC concentrations andthe environment. Using published data and unpublisheddatasets from the author team, we report regional DOCdifferences linked to latitude, permafrost zones, ecoregions,geology, near-surface soil organic carbon contents, andground ice classification of each lake region. The lakeDOC concentrations in our dataset range from 0 to1130 mg L−1(10.8 mg L−1median DOC concentration).Regarding the permafrost regions of our synthesis, wefound median lake DOC concentrations of 12.4 mg L−1(Siberia), 12.3 mg L−1(Alaska), 10.3 mg L−1(Greenland),and 4.5 mg L−1(Canada). Our synthesis shows a significantrelationship between lake DOC concentration and lakeecoregion. We found higher lake DOC concentrationsat boreal permafrost sites compared to tundra sites. Wefound significantly higher DOC concentrations in lakesin regions with ice-rich syngenetic permafrost deposits(yedoma) compared to non-yedoma lakes and a weak butsignificant relationship between soil organic carbon contentand lake DOC concentration as well as between ground icecontent and lake DOC. Our pan-Arctic dataset shows that theDOC concentration of a lake depends on its environmentalproperties, especially on permafrost extent and ecoregion, aswell as vegetation, which is the most important driver of lakeDOC in this study. This new dataset will be fundamental toquantify a pan-Arctic lake DOC pool for estimations of theimpact of lake DOC on the global carbon cycle and climatechange.

Description: 〈jats:p〉Abstract. The risk of carbon emissions from permafrost ground is linked to ground temperature and thus in particular to thermal insulation by vegetation and organic soil layers in summer and snow cover in winter. This ground insulation is strongly influenced by the presence of large herbivorous animals browsing for food. In this study, we examine the potential impact of large herbivore presence on the ground carbon storage in thermokarst landscapes of northeastern Siberia. Our aim is to understand how intensive animal grazing may affect permafrost thaw and hence organic matter decomposition, leading to different ground carbon storage, which is significant in the active layer. Therefore, we analysed sites with differing large herbivore grazing intensity in the Pleistocene Park near Chersky and measured maximum thaw depth, total organic carbon content and decomposition state by δ13C isotope analysis. In addition, we determined sediment grain size composition as well as ice and water content. We found the thaw depth to be shallower and carbon storage to be higher in intensively grazed areas compared to extensively and non-grazed sites in the same thermokarst basin. The intensive grazing presumably leads to a more stable thermal ground regime and thus to increased carbon storage in the thermokarst deposits and active layer. However, the high carbon content found within the upper 20 cm on intensively grazed sites could also indicate higher carbon input rather than reduced decomposition, which requires further studies. We connect our findings to more animal trampling in winter, which causes snow disturbance and cooler winter ground temperatures during the average annual 225 days below freezing. This winter cooling overcompensates ground warming due to the lower insulation associated with shorter heavily grazed vegetation during the average annual 140 thaw days. We conclude that intensive grazing influences the carbon storage capacities of permafrost areas and hence might be an actively manageable instrument to reduce net carbon emission from these sites. 〈/jats:p〉

Description: 〈jats:p〉Abstract. The combined effect of hot and dry extremes can have disastrous consequences for the society, economy, and the environment. While a significant number of studies have been conducted regarding the variability of the individual hot or dry extremes in Romania, the evaluation of the combined effect of these extremes (e.g. compound effect) is still lacking for this region. Thus, in this study we have assessed the spatio-temporal variability and trends of hot and dry summers in the eastern part of Europe, focusing on Romania, between 1950 and 2020 and we have analyzed the relationship between the frequency of hot summers and the prevailing large-scale atmospheric circulation. The length, spatial extent and frequency of HWs in Romania has increased significantly over the last 70 years, while for the drought conditions no significant changes have been observed. The rate of increase in the frequency and spatial extent of HWs has accelerated significantly after the 1990’s, while the smallest number of HWs was observed between 1970 and 1985. The hottest years, in terms of heatwave duration and frequency, were 2007, 2012, 2015, and 2019. One of the key drivers of hot summers, over our analyzed region, is the prevailing large-scale circulation, featuring an anticyclonic circulation over the central and eastern parts of Europe and enhanced atmospheric blocking activity associated with positive temperature anomalies underneath. We conclude that our study can help improve our understanding of the spatio-temporal variability of hot and dry summers, especially at the regional scale, as well as their driving mechanisms which might lead to a better predictability of these extreme events. 〈/jats:p〉

Description: We combine satellite data products to provide a first and general overview of the physical sea ice conditions along the drift of the international Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition and a comparison with previous years (2005–2006 to 2018–2019). We find that the MOSAiC drift was around 20 % faster than the climatological mean drift, as a consequence of large-scale low-pressure anomalies prevailing around the Barents–Kara–Laptev sea region between January and March. In winter (October–April), satellite observations show that the sea ice in the vicinity of the Central Observatory (CO; 50 km radius) was rather thin compared to the previous years along the same trajectory. Unlike ice thickness, satellite-derived sea ice concentration, lead frequency and snow thickness during winter months were close to the long-term mean with little variability. With the onset of spring and decreasing distance to the Fram Strait, variability in ice concentration and lead activity increased. In addition, the frequency and strength of deformation events (divergence, convergence and shear) were higher during summer than during winter. Overall, we find that sea ice conditions observed within 5 km distance of the CO are representative for the wider (50 and 100 km) surroundings. An exception is the ice thickness; here we find that sea ice within 50 km radius of the CO was thinner than sea ice within a 100 km radius by a small but consistent factor (4 %) for successive monthly averages. Moreover, satellite acquisitions indicate that the formation of large melt ponds began earlier on the MOSAiC floe than on neighbouring floes.

Description: The thermokarst lakes of permafrost regions play a major role in the global carbon cycle. These lakes are sources of methane to the atmosphere although the methane flux is restricted by an ice cover for most of the year. How methane concentrations and fluxes in these waters are affected by the presence of an ice cover is poorly understood. To relate water body morphology, ice formation and methane to each other, we studied the ice of three different water bodies in locations typical of the transition of permafrost from land to ocean in a continuous permafrost coastal region in Siberia. In total, 11 ice cores were analyzed as records of the freezing process and methane composition during the winter season. The three water bodies differed in terms of connectivity to the sea, which affected fall freezing. The first was a bay underlain by submarine permafrost (Tiksi Bay, BY), the second a shallow thermokarst lagoon cut off from the sea in winter (Polar Fox Lagoon, LG) and the third a land-locked freshwater thermokarst lake (Goltsovoye Lake, LK). Ice on all water bodies was mostly methane-supersaturated with respect to atmospheric equilibrium concentration, except for three cores from the isolated lake. In the isolated thermokarst lake, ebullition from actively thawing basin slopes resulted in the localized integration of methane into winter ice. Stable δ13C-CH4 isotope signatures indicated that methane in the lagoon ice was oxidized to concentrations close to or below the calculated atmospheric equilibrium concentration. Increasing salinity during winter freezing led to a micro-environment on the lower ice surface where methane oxidation occurred and the lagoon ice functioned as a methane sink. In contrast, the ice of the coastal marine environment was slightly supersaturated with methane, consistent with the brackish water below. Our interdisciplinary process study shows how water body morphology affects ice formation which mitigates methane fluxes to the atmosphere.

Description: In this study, the first fully continuous monitoring of water vapour isotopic composition at Neumayer Station III, Antarctica, during the 2-year period from February 2017 to January 2019 is presented. Seasonal and synoptic-scale variations in both stable water isotopes H182O and HDO are reported, and their links to variations in key meteorological variables are analysed. In addition, the diurnal cycle of isotope variations during the summer months (December and January 2017/18 and 2018/19) has been examined. Changes in local temperature and specific humidity are the main drivers for the variability in δ18O and δD in vapour at Neumayer Station III, on both seasonal and shorter timescales. In contrast to the measured δ18O and δD variations, no seasonal cycle in the Deuterium excess signal (d) in vapour is detected. However, a rather high uncertainty in measured d values especially in austral winter limits the confidence of this finding. Overall, the d signal shows a stronger inverse correlation with specific humidity than with temperature, and this inverse correlation between d and specific humidity is stronger for the cloudy-sky conditions than for clear-sky conditions during summertime. Back-trajectory simulations performed with the FLEXPART model show that seasonal and synoptic variations in δ18O and δD in vapour coincide with changes in the main sources of water vapour transported to Neumayer Station III. In general, moisture transport pathways from the east lead to higher temperatures and more enriched δ18O values in vapour, while weather situations with southerly winds lead to lower temperatures and more depleted δ18O values. However, on several occasions, δ18O variations linked to wind direction changes were observed, which were not accompanied by a corresponding temperature change. Comparing isotopic compositions of water vapour at Neumayer Station III and snow samples taken in the vicinity of the station reveals almost identical slopes, both for the δ18O–δD relation and for the temperature–δ18O relation.

Description: Hyrrokkin sarcophaga is a parasitic foraminifera that is commonly found in cold-water coral reefs where it infests the file clam Acesta excavata and the scleractinian coral Desmophyllum pertusum (formerly known as Lophelia pertusa). Here, we present measurements of the trace element and isotopic composition of these parasitic foraminifera, analyzed by inductively coupled optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and mass spectrometry (gas-source MS and inductively-coupled-plasma MS). Our results reveal that the geochemical signature of H. sarcophaga depends on the host organism it infests. Sr / Ca ratios are 1.1 mmol mol−1 higher in H. sarcophaga that infest D. pertusum, which could be an indication that dissolved host carbonate material is utilized in shell calcification, given that the aragonite of D. pertusum has a naturally higher Sr concentration compared to the calcite of A. excavata. Similarly, we measure 3.1 ‰ lower δ13C and 0.25 ‰ lower δ18O values in H. sarcophaga that lived on D. pertusum, which might be caused by the direct uptake of the host's carbonate material with a more negative isotopic composition or different pH regimes in these foraminifera (pH can exert a control on the extent of CO2 hydration/hydroxylation) due to the uptake of body fluids of the host. We also observe higher Mn / Ca ratios in foraminifera that lived on A. excavata but did not penetrate the host shell compared to specimen that penetrated the shell, which could be interpreted as a change in food source, changes in the calcification rate, Rayleigh fractionation or changing oxygen conditions. While our measurements provide an interesting insight into the calcification process of this unusual foraminifera, these data also indicate that the geochemistry of this parasitic foraminifera is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of paleoenvironmental conditions using Sr / Ca, Mn / Ca, δ18O or δ13C unless the host organism is known and its geochemical composition can be accounted for.

Description: In this work we have performed a detailed study of vectors to ore to a representative volcanic-rock-hosted replacive volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit located in the northern Iberian Pyrite Belt (Spain), the Aguas Teñidas deposit. The investigated vectors include the following: (1) mineralogical zoning, (2) host sequence characterization and mineralized unit identification based on whole rock geochemistry discrimination diagrams, (3) study of the characteristics and behaviour of whole rock geochemical anomalies around the ore (e.g. alteration-related compositional changes, characteristics and extent of geochemical halos of indicative elements such as Cu, Zn, Pb, Sb, Tl, and Ba around the deposit), and (4) application of portable X-ray fluorescence (p-XRF) analysis to the detection of the previous vectors. In the footwall, a concentric cone-shaped hydrothermal alteration zone bearing the stockwork passes laterally, from core to edge, from quartz (only local) to chlorite–quartz, sericite–chlorite–quartz, and sericite–quartz alteration zones. The hydrothermal alteration is also found in the hanging wall despite being tectonically allochthonous to the orebody: a proximal sericite alteration zone is followed by a more distal albite-rich one. Whole rock major elements show an increase in alteration indexes (e.g. AI, CCPI) towards the mineralization, a general SiO2 enrichment, and FeO enrichment as well as K2O and Na2O depletion towards the centre of the hydrothermal system, with MgO showing a less systematic behaviour. K2O and Na2O leached from the centre of the system are transported and deposited in more external areas. Copper, Pb, and Zn produce proximal anomalies around mineralized areas, with the more mobile Sb, Tl, and Ba generating wider halos. Whereas Sb and Tl halos form around all mineralized areas, Ba anomalies are restricted to areas around the massive sulfide body. Our results show that proposed vectors, or adaptations designed to overcome p-XRF limitations, can be confidently used by analysing unprepared hand specimens, including the external rough curved surface of drill cores. The data presented in this work are not only applicable to VMS exploration in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, but on a broader scale they will also contribute to improving our general understanding of vectors to ore in replacive-type VMS deposits.

Description: We combine satellite data products to provide a first and general overview of the physical sea ice conditions along the drift of the international Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition and a comparison with previous years (2005–2006 to 2018–2019). We find that the MOSAiC drift was around 20 % faster than the climatological mean drift, as a consequence of large-scale low-pressure anomalies prevailing around the Barents–Kara–Laptev sea region between January and March. In winter (October–April), satellite observations show that the sea ice in the vicinity of the Central Observatory (CO; 50 km radius) was rather thin compared to the previous years along the same trajectory. Unlike ice thickness, satellite-derived sea ice concentration, lead frequency and snow thickness during winter months were close to the long-term mean with little variability. With the onset of spring and decreasing distance to the Fram Strait, variability in ice concentration and lead activity increased. In addition, the frequency and strength of deformation events (divergence, convergence and shear) were higher during summer than during winter. Overall, we find that sea ice conditions observed within 5 km distance of the CO are representative for the wider (50 and 100 km) surroundings. An exception is the ice thickness; here we find that sea ice within 50 km radius of the CO was thinner than sea ice within a 100 km radius by a small but consistent factor (4 %) for successive monthly averages. Moreover, satellite acquisitions indicate that the formation of large melt ponds began earlier on the MOSAiC floe than on neighbouring floes.

Description: Across the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) there is a narrow engineering corridor with widely distributed slopes called the Qinghai–Tibet Engineering Corridor (QTEC), where a variety of important infrastructures are concentrated. These facilities are transportation routes for people, materials, energy, etc. from inland China to the Tibet Autonomous Region. From Golmud to Lhasa, the engineering corridor covers 632 km of permafrost containing the densely developed Qinghai–Tibet Railway and Qinghai–Tibet Highway, as well as power and communication towers. Slope failure in permafrost regions, caused by permafrost degradation, ground ice melting, etc., affects the engineering construction and permafrost environments in the QTEC. We implement a variety of sensors to monitor the hydrological and thermal deformation between permafrost slopes and permafrost engineering projects in the corridor. In addition to soil temperature and moisture sensors, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were adopted to monitor the spatial distribution and changes in thermal deformation. An integrated dataset of hydrological and thermal deformation in permafrost engineering and slopes in the QTEC from the 1950s to 2020, including meteorological and ground observations, TLS point cloud data, and RGB and thermal infrared (TIR) images, can be of great value for estimating the hydrological and thermal impact and stability between engineering and slopes under the influence of climate change and engineering disturbance. The dataset and code were uploaded to the Zenodo repository and can be accessed through https://zenodo.org/communities/qtec (last access: 23 June 2021), including meteorological and ground observations at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5009871 (Luo et al., 2020d), TLS measurements at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5009558 (Luo et al., 2020a), UAV RGB and TIR images at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5016192 (Luo et al., 2020b), and R code for permafrost indices and visualisation at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5002981 (Luo et al., 2020c).