Within the context of climate change, the Arctic is undergoing major perturbations: because the summer sea ice extent is rapidly decreasing, leading to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, it has been speculated that maritime traffic could increase within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA); for example, the northwest passage could open to cargo transportation for a longer time period each year by the mid-century. However, maritime traffic and oil exploration within the Arctic could also increase the anthropogenic pressure and pollution load in Arctic ecosystems. Knowing that PAHs are pollutants of interest that could be released by natural and anthropogenic activities, a total of 23 PAHs (16 parent and 7 alkylated PAHs) were analyzed in sediment samples: 113 marine surface sediment samples and 13 terrestrial sediment samples collected from glaciers and rivers. Additionally, 8 push cores were subsampled to determine temporal trends. All samples were retrieved from box cores collected between 2016 and 2019 during the ArcticNet summer expeditions onboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) icebreaker Amundsen. Samples were collected from glaciers and rivers using the ship helicopter as CCGS Amundsen traveled through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Surface sediments (uppermost 0.5 to 1 cm) were collected with a spoon and stored in plastic bags (WhirlPack) at 4°C until further analysis. Push cores were collected by pushing a plexiglass tube (10-cm diameter) into sediments. The cores were stored at 4°C until further subsampling. Sediment subsamples were retrieved from the push cores from 0 to 10 cm at 1-cm intervals. The data set includes: sample locations, PAHs content (23 PAHs) in every sample, ratio results and PCA results.

Supplement to: Corminboeuf, Anne; Montero-Serrano, Jean-Carlos; St-Louis, Richard (2021): Spatial and temporal distributions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in sediments from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 171, 112729