Seawater salinity sample measurements from the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE)

Dataset abstract

This data set contains salinity measurements from discrete seawater samples that were collected in the Southern Ocean (south of 30deg S) during the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE). 657 samples were collected during the period December 24th, 2016 and March 18th, 2017 in the Southern Ocean from the surface ocean using the ship's underway line (UW; 328 samples) and in vertical profiles using Niskin bottles mounted on the CTD rosette (273 samples). A few additional samples (56) were collected from a parallel cast with a trace-metal rosette, with a bucket, and as duplicates to ensure data quality. All samples were analyzed for their salinity and results are reported on the Practical Salinity Scale 1978 (PSS-78; Sea-Bird Electronics, Inc., 1989). Measurements were performed on a Guildline Autosal Laboratory Salinometer 8400(B) at CSIRO (Hobart, Australia) for samples collected during leg 1, and on a OPTIMARE Precision Salinometer (OPS) at the Alfred Wegener Institute (Bremerhaven, Germany) for samples collected during legs 2 and 3. This circumpolar data set provides insights into the hydrological cycle of the Southern Ocean and the processes (precipitation, evaporation, sea-ice melting and freezing, ice-berg and land-ice melting) that determine the salinity of a certain water mass. It is being used to calibrate the CTD sensor vertical profiles (Henry et al., 2020) and thermosalinograph sensor underway measurements (Haumann et al., 2020) from the ACE cruise.

Dataset contents

Processed Data

• ace_18_data_salinity_ctd_20200812.csv, text format; contains salinity measurements of seawater samples collected from the Niskin bottles mounted on the CTD rosette
• ace_18_data_salinity_uw_20200812.csv, text format; contains salinity measurements of seawater samples collected from the underway line
• ace_18_data_salinity_other_20200812.csv, text format; contains salinity measurements of miscellaneous samples: Duplicate seawater samples; seawater bucket sample from Cumberland Bay, South Georgia; seawater samples from Niskin bottles mounted on the trace-metal rosette.

Metadata

• data_file_header.txt, metadata, text format
• README.txt, metadata, text format
• figure*.pdf, metadata, portable document format

Dataset license

This physical and biogeochemical oceanography dataset is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0) whose full text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/