Effective grain size and ice layer data from the top 10 meters of the 2016 - 2017 Greenland Traverse for Accumulation and Climate Studies (GreenTrACS) firn cores, western Greenland Ice Sheet ...

• Main Author: McDowell, Ian
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: NSF Arctic Data Center 2024
• Subjects: Greenland; firn; grain size; ice layer; Antarc*; Antarctic; ice core; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.18739/a2j38kk2t; https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A2J38KK2T

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are covered in a layer of porous firn. Knowledge of firn structure improves our understanding of ice sheet mass balance, supra- and englacial hydrology, and ice core paleoclimate records. While macroscale firn properties, such as firn density, are relatively easy to measure in the field or lab, more intensive measurements of grain-scale properties are necessary to reduce uncertainty in remote sensing observations of mass balance, model meltwater infiltration, and constrain ice age -- gas age differences in ice cores. Additionally, as the duration and extent of surface melting increases, refreezing meltwater will greatly alter firn structure. Field observations of firn grain size and ice layer stratigraphy are required to test and validate physical models that simulate the ice sheet-wide evolution of the firn layer. However, visually measuring grain size and ice layer distributions is tedious, time-consuming, and can be subjective depending on the method. Here we ...