he high nutrient–low chlorophyll condition of the Southern Ocean is generally thought to be caused by the low bioavailability of micronutrients, particularly iron, which plays an integral role in phytoplankton photosynthesis. Nevertheless, the Southern Ocean experiences seasonal blooms that generally initiate in austral spring, peak in summer, and extend into autumn. This seasonal increase in primary ...

A rigorous synthesis of the sea-ice ecosystem and linked ecosystem services highlights that the sea-ice ecosystem supports all 4 ecosystem service categories, that sea-ice ecosystems meet the criteria for ecologically or biologically significant marine areas, that global emissions driving climate change are directly linked to the demise of sea-ice ecosystems and its ecosystem services, and that the ...

Rare CO2 flux measurements from Arctic pack ice show that two types of ice contribute to the release of CO2 from the ice to the atmosphere during winter and spring: young, thin ice with a thin layer of snow and older (several weeks), thicker ice with thick snow cover. Young, thin sea ice is characterized by high salinity and high porosity, and snow-covered thick ice remains relatively warm ( >  −7.5 °C) ...

The Atlantic Water, entering the Arctic through the Barents Sea and Fram Strait, is the main source of nutrients in the Arctic Ocean. The Barents Sea is divided by the Polar Front into an Atlantic-dominated domain in the south, and an Arctic-dominated domain in the north. The Polar Front is a thermohaline structure, which is topographically-steered at sub-surface, and influenced by the seasonal ...

The decrease in Arctic sea-ice extent and thickness as a result of global warming will impact the timing, duration, magnitude and composition of phytoplankton production with cascading effects on Arctic marine food-webs and biogeochemical cycles. Here, we elucidate the environmental drivers shaping the composition, abundance, biomass, trophic state and vertical flux of protists (unicellular eukaryotes), ...

In order to investigate the effect of glacial water on the CO₂ system in the fjord, we studied the variability of the total alkalinity (A_T), total dissolved inorganic carbon (C_T), dissolved inorganic nutrients, oxygen isotopic ratio (δ¹⁸O), and freshwater fractions from the glacier front to the outer Tempelfjorden on Spitsbergen in winter 2012 (January, ...

Strong seasonality is a key feature of high-latitude systems like the Barents Sea. While the interannual variability and long-term changes of the Barents Sea are well-documented, the seasonal progression of the physical and biological systems is less known, mainly due to poor accessibility of the seasonally ice-covered area in winter and spring. Here, we use an extensive set of physical and biological ...

Changes in the inflow of Atlantic Water (AW) and its properties to the Arctic Ocean bring more warm water, contribute to sea ice decline, promote borealisation of marine ecosystems, and affect biological and particularly primary productivity in the Eurasian Arctic Ocean. One of the two branches of AW inflow follows the shelf break north of Svalbard, where it dominates oceanographic conditions, ...

The Barents Sea is a highly dynamic and productive marine ecosystem and a hotspot of global warming. Variability in sea ice extent is a common feature in the Barents Sea with substantial movements of the sea ice edge on short-term, seasonal to interannual time scales. Historically the northern Barents Sea (north of 75◦N) has been ice-covered in winter, but recently it has become the area with most ...

We reconstruct climate and changes in water-mass properties in relation to variations in palaeoproductivity at the south-western Svalbard margin throughout the last 2000 years. Environmental conditions in subsurface (ca. 250–75 m) and near-surface to surface water (75–0 m) were studied on the basis of the distribution patterns and fluxes of planktic foraminiferal faunas. Stable isotopes in three ...