Environmental data associated with sea ice cores collected during SIPEX and SIPEX II

Zooplankton were collected during the winter-spring transition during two cruises of the Aurora Australis: SIPEX in 2007 and SIPEX II in 2012. As part of the collections sea ice cores were collected to describe the ice habitat during the period of zooplankton collections. Ice cores were taken with a 20 cm diameter SIPRE corer and sectioned in the field with an ice core. Temperature was measured in the section using a spike thermometer and slivers of each section were melted without filtered water to record salinity. The remainders of each section were melted at 4oC in filtered seawater and the melted water was used to measure chlorophyll a concentration, and meiofauna species and abundance.