ALBERT

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.