What's Behind the Arctic's Mysterious Green Ice?

[rangerrebew]

What's Behind the Arctic's Mysterious Green Ice?
By Kacey Deamer, Staff Writer | March 31, 2017 02:00pm ET
 
Melt ponds dot the surface of Arctic ice.
 

It should be dark under the ice cover of the Arctic, and yet in 2011, scientists were perplexed when they discovered phytoplankton blooming beneath it, giving the ice a greenish hue. Now they know why: The ice has thinned enough to let light through to fuel a thriving bunch of little plants.

A large bloom of phytoplankton, which is algae, was first found growing under the Arctic sea ice in 2011. Researchers said they were shocked at the discovery, because conditions under the ice should have been too dark for the plants to photosynthesize (making sugars from light, water and carbon dioxide) to survive. New research has shown, however, that the thinning sea ice allows enough light to pass through for the phytoplankton to bloom.

http://www.livescience.com/58492-arctic-green-ice-explained.html

[Smokin Joe]

Phytoplankton are the base of the food chain in the oceans. Sounds like fisheries could thrive up there.

[Cripplecreek]

Phytoplankton are the base of the food chain in the oceans. Sounds like fisheries could thrive up there.

Cold oceans are productive oceans. There is life in clear blue tropical waters but nothing on the scale of life that exists in the cold green waters due to the Phytoplankton. So, yes, green is good.

It used to irritate the hell out of me seeing idiots at TOS declaring the zebra mussels to be good for the great lakes because they're cleaning the water and turning it clear blue.

[Smokin Joe]

Cold oceans are productive oceans. There is life in clear blue tropical waters but nothing on the scale of life that exists in the cold green waters due to the Phytoplankton. So, yes, green is good.

It used to irritate the hell out of me seeing idiots at TOS declaring the zebra mussels to be good for the great lakes because they're cleaning the water and turning it clear blue.

They say that until they have to clear the clusters of filter feeders away from water intakes. Invasive species are still invasive, and often the ecosystem has no defense.