Sea Ice Temperature in different depths measured during the Norwegian North Polar Expedition 1893-1896

This dataset contains the observations of sea ice temperature conducted during the Norwegian North Polar Expedition in 1893-1896 onboard the drifting vessel Fram. Observations were obtained mostly daily during large parts of the expedition, after the method was established by F. Nansen. Temperatures were measured under the lead of S. Scott-Hansen in two or four inch wide boreholes using thermometers mounted to wooden poles, that mostly remained positioned in the ice and were pulled up for measurements. Air exchange in the holes was limited by muffs of reindeer skin wound around the wooden poles. Due to ice deformation and other influences, the thermometers needed to be moved several times and did not remain at the same site. The quality of the dataset was questioned already in 1927 by Finn Malmgren in his dissertation "On the Properties of Sea Ice" referring to systematic measurement errors. Data was digitized by C. Katlein manually from a scan of "The Norwegian North Polar Expedition Scientific Results vol. 6 (1905)" Section number 12 "Meteorology" compiled by H. Mohn. The scanned original is available unter https://archive.org/details/norwegiannorthpo06nans (ark:/13960/t9m333v0g).

The respective meteorological observations containing the geographic positions of these observations are archived at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC): Environmental Working Group. Edited by F. Fetterer and V. F. Radionov. 2000. Environmental Working Group Arctic Meteorology and Climate Atlas, Version 1. [Fram]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NSIDC: National Snow and Ice Data Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.7265/N5MS3QNJ.