Image

Life on Ice

June 29, 2014

Just as a rainstorm in the desert can cause the landscape to explode with wildflowers, the annual sea ice melt can cause phytoplankton in the Arctic Ocean to bloom. The dark patches on this ice floe are algae that thrive in “brine channels” on the underside of the ice as it melts. In recent years, researchers have found that ice once thought to be too thick to allow sunlight to penetrate actually harbors massive algae blooms that form an important part of the food chain each spring in the far north.(Photo by Amanda Kowalski)