Green Edge ice camp campaigns: understanding the processes controlling the under-ice Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom

Abstract

The Green Edge initiative was developed to investigate the processes controlling the primary productivity and the fate of organic matter produced during the Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom (PSB) and to determine its role in the ecosystem. Two field campaigns were conducted in 2015 and 2016 at an ice camp located on landfast sea ice southeast of Qikiqtarjuaq Island in Baffin Bay (67.4797N, 63.7895W). During both expeditions, a large suite of physical, chemical and biological variables was measured beneath a consolidated sea ice cover from the surface to the bottom at 360 m depth to better understand the factors driving the PSB. Key variables such as temperature, salinity, radiance, irradiance, nutrient concentrations, chlorophyll-a concentration, bacteria, phytoplankton and zooplankton abundance and taxonomy, carbon stocks and fluxes were routinely measured at the ice camp. Here, we present the results of a joint effort to tidy and standardize the collected data sets that will facilitate their reuse in other Arctic studies. The dataset is available at http://www.seanoe.org/data/00487/59892/.