2D automated electrical resistivity tomography (A-ERT) at Deception Island, Antarctica

Climate induced warming of permafrost soils is a global phenomenon, with regional and site-specific variations, which are not fully understood. In this context, a 2D automated electrical resistivity tomography (A-ERT) system was installed for the first time in Antarctica at Deception Island, associated to the existing Crater Lake site of the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring Network (CALM-S). This set-up aims to I) monitor subsurface freezing and thawing processes on a daily and seasonal basis and to map the spatial and temporal variability of thaw depth, and to II) study the impact of short-lived extreme meteorological events on active layer dynamics. In addition, the feasibility of installing and running autonomous ERT monitoring stations in remote and extreme environments such as Antarctica was evaluated for the first time. Measurements were repeated at 4-hour intervals during a full year, enabling the detection of seasonal trends, as well as short-lived resistivity changes reflecting individual meteorological events. The latter is important to distinguish between (1) long-term climatic trends and (2) the impact of anomalous seasons on the ground thermal regime. The A-ERT.txt file contains all ERT surveys which were performed using Wenner electrode configuration. 20 copper plates, which are connected by buried cables to the active boxes, with an electrode spacing of 0.5 m were used in this experiment. This setup yields 56 individual data points for each monitoring data set at six data levels. All data were saved in the Res2Dinv format. The temperature. xlsx file contains air and ground temperatures data during the experiment period. The Air temperature was measured at 160 cm above the surface and ground temperatures in the shallow borehole S3,3 were measured with ibutton-sensors at depths 2.5, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 and 160 cm.