Year Round survey of Ocean-Sea Ice-Air Exchanges – the YROSIAE survey

YROSIAE survey aimed to carry out a year-round survey of land-fast sea ice focusing on the study of sea ice physics and biogeochemistry in order to a) better understand and budget exchanges of energy and matter across the ocean-sea ice-atmosphere interfaces during sea ice growth and decay and b) quantify their potential impact on fluxes of climate gases (CO2, DMS, CH4, N2O) to the atmosphere and on carbon and macro- nutrients and micro-nutrients export to the ocean.
Ice cores, sea water, brines and exported material were collected at regular intervals about 1 km off cape Evans from November 2011 to December 2011 and from September 2012 to December 2012 in trace-metal clean conditions. Samples are processed to characterize both the vertical distribution and temporal changes of climate gases (CO2, DMS, CH4, N2O), CO2-related parameters (dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity and CaCO3 amount), physical parameters (salinity, temperature, texture, 18O), biogeochemical parameters (macro-nutrients, particulate and dissolved organic carbon, δ13C, δ30Si and δ15N, micro-nutrients - including iron) and biological parameters ( chlorophyll a, primary production within sea ice derived from O2:Ar and O2:N ratios, autotrophic species determination, bacterial cell counts a.s.o.).
In addition, we deployed a micro-meterological tower and automatic chambers to measure air-ice CO2 fluxes. Continuous measurements of ice temperature and ice accretion or melting, both at the ice-ocean and the ice-atmosphere interfaces were provided by an “Ice-T” ice mass balance buoy. Sediment traps collected particles below the ice between 10 and 70 m, while dust collectors provided a record of a full suite of trace metal and dust at different levels above the ground.
We will present the aims, overall approach and sampling strategy of the YROSIAE survey.
In addition we will also discuss CO2 dynamics within the ice and present temporal air-ice CO2 fluxes over the year. We will provide a first budget of air-ice CO2 fluxes during ice growth for Antarctica sea ice and discuss the impact of the snow cover on air-ice CO2 fluxes.