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Melt Down

September 4, 2018

Summertime ice melt along the Greenland Ice Sheet has sped up in recent decades, more fresh water to flow into the surrounding ocean. The fresh water carries nutrients and organic carbon, which can affect the growth rates of marine microbes living. MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Matt Osman and WHOI associate scientist Sarah Das, along with scientists from the University of Alberta, are studying the rates at which microbes living in these ocean waters metabolize and grow in order to determine how future melting may affect ecosystems and carbon storage in the ocean. (Photo by Matt Osman, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)