Small particles (known as aerosol) in the atmosphere play several critical roles. They affect the transmission of sunlight to the underlying surface; they affect the formation of clouds, and they host and enhance important chemical reactions. When they are deposited on ice they leave a record of past conditions that can be accessed by drilling ice cores. The most significant aerosol component over marine areas is sea salt aerosol. Over most of the world''s oceans this is created by bubble bursting in sea spray. However there is strong evidence that another source of sea salt aerosol is important in the polar regions, and that this ultimately derives from the surface of sea ice. The existence of this source forms the basis for a proposed method using ice core data for determining changes in sea ice extent over long time periods. Additionally sea salt aerosol, along with salty sea ice surfaces, is the host for the production of halogen compounds which seem to play a key role in the oxidation chemistry of the polar regions. It is therefore important to understand the sources of polar sea salt aerosol and therefore to be able to predict how they may vary with, and feedback to, climate. It was recently proposed that the main source of this polar sea salt aerosol was the sublimation of salty blowing snow. The idea is that snow on sea ice has a significant salinity. When this salty snow is mobilised into blowing snow, sublimation from the (top of) the blowing snow layer will allow the formation of sea salt aerosol above the blowing snow layer, that can remain airborne after the blowing snow has ceased. First calculations suggested that this would provide a strong source of aerosol (greater than that from open ocean processes over an equivalent area). It was proposed that this would have a strong influence on polar halogen chemistry and a noticeable influence on halogens at lower latitudes. However, this was based on estimates of the relevant parameters as there were no data about aerosol production from this source, and almost no data about blowing snow over sea ice in general. Participation in a rare sea ice cruise onboard the German ice breaker Polarstern operated by Alfred-Wegener-Institut (AWI) provided the opportunity to access the sea ice covered Weddell Sea during Austral winter 2013. Snow on sea ice was sampled at various locations, and the snow salinity was subsequently measured in the ship''s laboratory.

This dataset contains Weddell Sea limited region ocean ice shelf model (NEMO) outputs. The included experiments were designed to look at the influence of far-field changes in temperature and salinity to changes in melt rates in the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf melt rate. Funding was provided by the Filchner Ice Shelf System project NE/L013770/1.

Sea ice index comprising data extracted from historical records of ship observed ice positions during Weddell Sea voyages between 1820-1843. Extracted data comprise information on the expedition ship and lead, type of document, the date on which the observation was made, the ship''s latitude and longitude at the time of the observation, comments on sea ice and sea ice present (1 if deemed present, 0 if not). Publication assisted by Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship EM-2022-042 to Professor Grant R. Bigg: "Extending the Southern Ocean marine ice record to the eighteenth century".

This dataset contains the object ID, morphotaxonomic name, and approximate size (in mm) of over 70,000 organisms identified from select Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS) images from the cruise PS118 to the Weddell Sea from April - May 2019. Images were collected for assessing epibenthic megafauna communities and establishing temporal baselines for future studies. This work has been supported by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Independent Research Fellowship NE/S014756/1, awarded to EM. TK is funded by a Cambridge International and Newnham College Scholarship, administered by Cambridge Trust. RW and HG are funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowship MR/ W01002X/1 "The past, present and future of unique cold-water benthic (seafloor) ecosystems in the Southern Ocean" awarded to RW. HG is also funded by BIOPOLE, funded by the NERC, under National Capability Science Multi-Centre award scheme (NC-SM2).

This dataset contains atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide concentration data in the Southern Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean, and dissolved methane concentration data from surface and water column seawater samples in the Scotia Sea, Weddell Sea, and South Georgia shelf taken onboard RRS Discovery during DY158 from December 2022 and January 2023. Atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide concentration was measured using a Los Gatos Ultraportable Greenhouse Gas Analyser (UGGA) G2311-f. The concentrations are 2 hour averaged and have been filtered based on wind direction to data corresponding to wind coming from behind the ship to remove sources of pollution from the ship stack. Surface seawater samples were taken either using the uncontaminated seawater system or from the surface sample from a CTD (Conductivity-Depth-Temperature) cast. Water column seawater samples were taken from a CTD with Niskin bottle rosette-casts at various depths spanning from the sea surface to the seafloor. The dissolved methane concentration in each seawater sample is measured using gas chromatography. Funding source: This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council and the ARIES Doctoral Training Partnership (grant no. NE/S007334/1). The fieldwork was supported by the Collaborative Antarctic Science Scheme (CASS).

This dataset contains all datasets used in Yang et al. ACP (2019), especially the model-data comparison data and pTOMCAT''s model experimental results. The data include pTOMCAT model output of sea salt aerosol (SSA) and the cruise data from the Weddell Sea, they include blowing snow particles and aerosol number density and regrouped size spectrum over open ocean, marginal sea ice zone and packed sea ice. It also contains monthly sea salt aerosol sodium concentrations at eight polar sites in both northern and southern hemispheres: Alert, Barrow, Summit, Palmer, Neumayer, Halley, Kohnen and Concordia (Dome C). The Weddell Sea particle data (both blowing snow and aerosol) are from 29m above the sea level (not including near surface data). The data period only covers 13 June-26 July 2013. To get access to a full cruise dataset, see the companion paper by Frey et al. (2019) and the DOI link. This study was supported by NERC-funded BLOWSEA project (NE/J023051/1) and the German RV Polarstern.