Horizontal profiles of longwave and shortwave radiation components over sea ice near Barrow, Alaska during the 2011 melt

An integrated instrument package for measuring and understanding the surface radiation budget of sea ice is presented, along with results from its first deployment. The setup simultaneously measures broadband fluxes of upwelling and downwelling terrestrial and solar radiation (four components separately), spectral fluxes of incident and reflected solar radiation, and supporting data such as air temperature and humidity, surface temperature, and location (GPS), in addition to photographing the sky and observed surface during each measurement. The instruments are mounted on a small sled, allowing measurements of the radiation budget to be made at many locations in the study area to see the effect of small-scale surface processes on the large-scale radiation budget. Such observations have many applications, from calibration and validation of remote sensing products to improving our understanding of surface processes that affect atmosphere-snow-ice interactions and drive feedbacks, ultimately leading to the potential to improve climate modelling of ice-covered regions of the ocean. The photographs, spectral data, and other observations allow for improved analysis of the broadband data. An example of this is shown by using the observations made during a partly cloudy day, which show erratic variations due to passing clouds, and creating a careful estimate of what the radiation budget along the observed line would have been under uniform sky conditions, clear or overcast. Other data from the setup's first deployment, in June 2011 on fast ice near Point Barrow, Alaska, are also shown; these illustrate the rapid changes of the radiation budget during a cold period that led to refreezing and new snow well into the melt season.

The HERMES cold-water coral database

The HERMES cold-water coral database is a combination of historical and published sclerectinia cold-water coral occurrences (mainly Lophelia pertusa) and new records of the HERMES project along the European margin. This database will be updated if new findings are reported. New or historical data can be sent to Ben De Mol (mailto:bendemol@ub.edu). Besides geocodes a second category indicates the coral species and if they are sampled alive or dead. If absolute dating is available of the corals this is provide together with the method. Only the framework building cold-water corals are selected: Lophelia pertusa, Madrepora oculata and common cold-water corals often associated with the framework builders like: Desmophyllum sp and Dendrophylia sp. in comments other observed corals are indicated. Another field indicates if the corals are part of a large build-up or solitary. A third category of parameters is referencing to the quality of the represented data. In this category are the following parameters indicated: source of reference, source type (such as Fishermen location, scientific paper, cruise reports). sample code and or name and sample type (e.g. rock dredge, grab, video line). These parameters must allow an assessment of the quality of the described parameters.