Sea ice thickness and snow depth measurements from sea ice mass balance buoy ZS2010

CRREL-type IMB ZS2010 is an autonomous instrument that was installed on the landfast sea ice in Prydz Bay, east Antarctica in July 2010. The buoy was deployed at 69.35°S; 76.42°E, ~3 km from the coast of Station Zhongshan with initial thicknesses of snow and ice of 0.08 and 1.10 m, respectively, on 26 July 2010. Snow/Ice temperature and mass balance were measured along a chain of thermistors and via acoustic rangefinder sounders. The thermistor chain was 4.5 m long and included 45 sensors with a regular spacing of 10cm. The acoustic sensors were located above and below the ice surface, monitoring the position of the top and bottom surfaces of the ice. The resulting time series describes the evolution of temperature and snow/ice mass balance as a function of time between 26 July 2010 and 31 January 2011 in sample intervals of 2 hours. Data from several thermistors were unavailable because of a sensor failure.