The Arctic Ocean is blooming with algae as the ice sheet melts

[Judi Lynn]

This means more food for marine animals, but the net long-term consequences aren't pretty.

by Fermin Koop July 10, 2020

A surprising shift is currently happening in the Arctic Ocean, a new study has found. Dark water is blooming with phytoplankton, the tiny algae at the base of the food web, as sunlight floods spaces that used to be obscured by ice that is no longer there.

Researchers from Stanford University found that there has been a 57% increase in phytoplankton in the Arctic ocean over the past two decades. This has exceeded the researcher’s expectations, as it’s changing the way the ocean stores carbon and sucking up resources needed for the rest of the ecosystem.

“The rates are really important in terms of how much food there is for the rest of the ecosystem,” Earth system scientist and co-author Kevin Arrigo told Science Alert. “It’s also important because this is one of the main ways that CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere and into the ocean.”

The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet, having experienced a temperature increase of 0.75 degrees Celsius (1.35 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last decade alone. Meanwhile, Earth as a whole has warmed by nearly the same amount, 0.8 degrees C, but over the past 137 years.

More:
https://www.zmescience.com/science/artic-ocean-blooming-algae-023523/