| Summary: | The PIPERS (Polynyas, Ice Production and its seasonal Evolution in the Ross Sea) cruiseon N. B. Palmer into the early winter Ross Sea took place between April 11 and June 142017. The main objective was to investigate the Atmosphere-Ice-Ocean interactions in theTerra Nova Bay and Ross Ice Shelf coastal polynyas. The cruise however extended thesepolynyas studies to a series of ice stations transects in and out of the Ross Sea. Itinvolved a large set of multidisciplinary activities aiming at the detailed documentation ofprocesses across the ocean-ice-atmosphere continuum. This paper presents the basicphysical (Temperature, bulk salinity, brine volume, Rayleigh number) and biogeochemicalproperties (water stable isotopes, Chl-a) of the sea ice cover at 27 ice stations. The cruiseencountered unusual sea-ice conditions in the 2016/2017 season, where exceptionally lowsea-ice summer extent was recorded Antarctica-wide as early as November 2016, whichstayed below previous records of the satellite era for the rest of the austral summer. It is alsoa year where active primary production was evidenced within the Ross Sea and Terra NovaBay Polynya, a few weeks before the cruise took place. We will show how these conditionshave potentially affected (or not) the physical and biogeochemical properties of the sea icecover in the Central Ross Sea and discuss the contrasts with the sea ice properties of theTerra Nova Bay polynya and the MIZ.
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