Surface Mass Balance and Snow Depth on Sea Ice Working Group (SUMup) snow density subdataset, Greenland and Antartica, 1950-2018

• Main Authors: Megan Thompson-Munson, Jan Lenaerts, Lora Koenig, Lynn Montgomery
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Arctic Data Center 2021
• Subjects: Greenland; Antarctica; Density; Firn; Antarctic; Antarc*; antartic*; Greenland ice cores; ice core; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.18739/A2W08WH6N

This dataset includes snow density measurements from both hemispheres. This dataset is a community effort to distribute easy to use in-situ data to improve surface mass balance modeling and remote sensing efforts. This dataset is a compilation of work from many individual researchers. When using this dataset please cite both the individual researchers who provided the data as listed in the Citation field as well as this dataset. This dataset includes snow density measurements over both ice sheets, ice caps and snow on sea ice. It excludes seasonal snow on land measurements. The dataset contains over 2,200,000 point measurements of density at different depths. The measurement methods include different sized density cutters (generally from 100 - 1000 cc) used in snow pits, ice core sections, neutron-density methods, X-ray microfocus computer tomography, Gamma-ray attenuation, pycnometers, optical televiewer (OPTV) borehole logging, and Density-and-conductivity mixed permittivity (DECOMP).The majority of the observations (~72%) come from Greenland ice cores or snow pits. Antarctic data comprises ~28% of the snow density subdataset and is predominately from ice cores. The depth of the density measurements are recorded using two different methods, either the top and bottom depth or a midpoint depth. Fields of the data include the date taken, latitude, longitude, start depth, stop depth, midpoint depth, density, error, elevation, method, and associated citation.