Scientists report finding a massive bloom of phytoplankton hidden under Arctic ice, suggesting that, as the ice thins and melts, the region is becoming vastly more biologically productive.
By Pete Spotts, Staff writer / June 7, 2012
Scientists have discovered a vast pea-soup-green bloom of tiny plant-like marine organisms under Arctic Ocean ice. The bloom represents an enormous, and until now, unknown reservoir of food for marine life in frigid waters at the top of the world.
These waters, in sum, appear to be far more biologically productive than previously believed.
“This wasn’t just any phytoplankton bloom,” says Kevin Arrigo, a Stanford University marine scientist and lead author of the study. “It was literally the most intense phytoplankton bloom I’ve ever seen in my 25 years of doing this type of research” in oceans around the world