Tag Archives: Green Edge

The dark side of ice coring

Ice coring, a central activity at the Ice Camp

One of the major habitats GreenEdge researchers are studying is the sea-ice. We are interested in its optical, physical and chemical features, as well as the life it supports. As such, one of the essential activities at the ice camp is the ice coring. We actually spend the full morning coring the entire ice thickness (which currently varies from 1.15 m to 1.50 m at the study site) with different cores (14.5 and 9 cm diameters) for different purposes, i.e. measurement of temperature and salinity gradients, nutrient content, chlorophyll a biomass, spectral properties, microbial genetic diversity, etc.

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The multi-purpose Ice-T Buoy

Ice-T is a buoy used at the Ice Camp to measure the thickness of sea ice. Anchored in the pack ice, this device provides information on atmospheric pressure, air temperature, ice drift, horizontal current, temperature, salinity at the base of the ice in addition to thermal profiles of the ice and snow. These data are as accurate (or sometimes more) than those provided by the satellite-derived maps and are drawn up in real time.

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