Solving the mystery of the Arctic's green ice

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/03/harvard-researchers-help-solve-mystery-of-the-arctics-green-ice/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Solving the mystery of the Arctic’s green ice[/font]

[font size=4]New model explains blooms of phytoplankton growing under Arctic sea ice[/font]

March 29, 2017
By Leah Burrows, SEAS Communications

[font size=3]In 2011, researchers observed something that should be impossible — a massive bloom of phytoplankton growing under Arctic sea ice in conditions that should have been far too dark for anything requiring photosynthesis to survive. So, how was this bloom possible?

Using mathematical modeling, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) found that thinning Arctic sea ice may be responsible for these and more blooms in the future, and could potentially cause significant disruption in the Arctic food chain.

The research is described in Science Advances and is a collaboration between researchers from SEAS, University of Oxford, and University of Reading.

…

Twenty years ago, only about 3 to 4 percent of Arctic sea ice was thin enough to allow large colonies of plankton to bloom underneath. Today, the researchers found that nearly 30 percent of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean permits sub-ice blooms in summer months.

…[/font][/font]

http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1601191

[greymattermom]

1. What creatures feed on this phytoplankton?

won't they increase?

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. The introduction to the Science Advances (Open Access) article answers your question

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/3/e1601191.full

…

Phytoplankton are a fundamental component of Earth’s oceanic ecosystem and carbon cycle. …

… The modern Arctic is undergoing a major ecological shift because of climate change: …

[Dustlawyer]

2. I read somewhere that phytoplankton supply 80% of the earth's O2.

The growing acidification of the oceans is having a negative effect on the phytoplankton world-wide. It is not good for us for the ice to melt but it has one small benefit of giving the phytoplankton a retreat.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Talk of blooms in the Arctic Ocean makes me nervous ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

... although sequestering a little CO2 may be what we need right now, it could go too far.