The goal of this project is to determine the role of the snow on the inorganic carbon dynamic, associated with the evolution of the algal community changes under different snow cover.

Snow cover has a strong impact on the sea ice thermodynamics and has been suggested to buffer the exchange of CO₂ between the ice and the atmosphere. We will look into snow thickness, density, salinity, temperature, structure and we will determine if the snow cover could contain any CO₂ (through measurement of total alkalinity and total dissolved inorganic carbon) and we will associated this with measurements of CO₂ fluxes. In addition complete profile for inorganic carbon will be perform within sea ice, under different snow cover.

Field site: Villum Research Station, Station Nord, Greenland

PI: Nicolas-Xavier Geilfus