Abstract

The Green Edge project was designed to investigate the onset, life and fate of a phytoplankton spring bloom (PSB) in the Arctic Ocean. The lengthening of the ice-free period and the warming of seawater, amongst other factors, have induced major changes in arctic ocean biology over the last decades. Because the PSB is at the base of the Arctic Ocean food chain, it is crucial to understand how changes in the arctic environment will affect it. Green Edge was a large multidisciplinary collaborative project bringing researchers and technicians from 28 different institutions in seven countries, together aiming at understanding these changes and their impacts into the future. The fieldwork for the Green Edge project took place over two years (2015 and 2016) and was carried out from both an ice-camp and a research vessel in the Baffin Bay, canadian arctic. This paper describes the sampling strategy and the data set obtained from the research cruise, which took place aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) Amundsen in spring 2016. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.17882/59892 (Massicotte et al., 2019a).

Highlights

  • The Arctic Ocean is currently experiencing unprecedented environmental changes

  • 75 This paper describes the sampling strategy and the data set obtained from the research cruise, which took place aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) Amundsen in spring 2016

  • Benthos sampling was performed to answer the following specific objectives to test if i) sea-ice cover is the primary environmental driver of contribution and geographic distribution of sympagic carbon on the seabed, (ii) sympagic carbon is the most important baseline food source supporting benthic consumers during spring in areas close to the marginal ice zone (MIZ), and iii) deep 395 benthic food web dynamics and structural variability are directly linked with both depth and availability of food sources (Yunda-Guarin et al, 2020)

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The Arctic Ocean is currently experiencing unprecedented environmental changes. The increase of the summer ice-retreat 80 lengthens the phytoplankton growing season and increases the area of the marginal ice zone (MIZ). To significantly extend the monitoring of the PSB beyond the duration and space covered by the cruise, we deployed four BGC-Argo (Bio-Geo-Chemical-Argo) floats on July 9th They collected data until November 1st (Fig. 1B), performing a 01000 m profile each day. The ice-specific version of BGC-Argo floats that were deployed, the so-called PRO-ICE, are 130 commercialized by NKE Electronics (France) They carry a typical bio-geochemical payload (Sea-Bird 41 ARGO CTD, Aanderaa optode 4330 Oxygen sensor, Sea-BirdTM OCR-504 PAR (photosynthetic available radiation) and downwelling radiance sensor (380, 412 and 490 nm), Sea-Bird ECO-FLBBCD fluorescence chlorophyll a, colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and backscattering sensor and Sea-Bird SUNA nitrate sensor). These constitute robust results towards the validation of 150 the use of multiple measurement platforms to investigate complex systems

Data quality control and processing
Meteorological, navigational and ice coverage data
Physical data
Water masses
Chemistry
Light Field and Bio-optics
Viruses and bacteria
Zooplankton and Fish
Benthos sampling
Birds and marine mammals
Bacterial production, respiration and viability
Primary production and micronutrient cycling
Benthic processes
Other data
Conclusion
10. Acknowledgments
METHOD
Findings
Isotopic procedure
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call