Winter snow and sea ice thermal conductivity, density, and conductive heat flux profiles from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition, central Arctic, October 2019 - March 2020

This dataset includes derived snow and sea ice properties from various ice mass balance instruments deployed during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition drifting with the central Arctic sea ice pack from fall 2019 through fall 2020. Variables include profiles of thermal conductivity, density, and conductive heat flux through sea ice and snow. Thermal conductivity and density are derived by inverting the one-dimensional heat equation using temperature profiles from three seasonal ice mass balance (SIMB3) buoys and ten Snow and Ice Mass Balance Arrays (SIMBA), collectively referred to as IMBs. Thermal conductivity is combined with temperature profiles to calculate conductive heat flux. This dataset contains one file per instrument for the full period of its operation. All files contain a quality control flag that includes some automatic filters that identify when thermal conductivity estimates are outside the range of 0-3 W m-1 K-1 (watts per meter Kelvin) as well as for manually determined times when data may be less reliable. Data have time resolution of 4 (SIMB3) or 6 (SIMBA) hours during October to March, when temperature data is available for a given instrument. All data have a vertical resolution of 2 centimeters (cm).
Additional details about the methods and uncertainties can be found in Sledd et al. (submitted).
Sledd, A., M.D. Shupe, A. Solomon, C.J. Cox, D. Perovich, R. Lei (submitted): Snow thermal conductivity and conductive flux in the Central Arctic: estimates from observations and implications for models. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene.