Air clathrate hydrates in the EDML ice core, Antarctica

Painer, Florian; Kipfstuhl, Sepp; Drury, Martyn; Uchida, Tsutomu; Freitag, Johannes; Weikusat, Ilka

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5023-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5023-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5023-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

Research article

|

24 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 24 Oct 2025

Air clathrate hydrates in the EDML ice core, Antarctica

Florian Painer, Sepp Kipfstuhl, Martyn Drury, Tsutomu Uchida, Johannes Freitag, and Ilka Weikusat

Data sets

Raw data of air hydrate properties of the EDML ice core F. Painer et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.984577

Summary of air hydrate properties of the EDML ice core F. Painer et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.984580

Hand-labeled ground truth images of ice thick section microphotographs of the EDML ice core to evaluate air hydrate segmentation performance F. Painer et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.984842

Evaluation of the segmentation performance of air hydrates from microphotographs of ice thick sections of the EDML ice core F. Painer et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.984852

Model code and software

Air-hydrate-analysis from microphotographs of polar ice F. Painer and I Weikusat https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16738522

Short summary

Air clathrate hydrates trap ancient air in the deeper part of ice sheets. We use digital microscopy and automated image analysis to investigate the evolution of number, size, and shape of air clathrate hydrates from 1250 m depth to the bottom of the ice sheet. We confirm the previously found relation of changes in number and size with past climate and find a connection of their shape to changes in ice deformation. The results will help us to better understand air clathrate hydrates in deep ice.