The Arctic icescape is rapidly transforming from a thicker multiyear ice cover to a thinner and largely seasonal first-year ice cover with significant consequences for Arctic primary production. One critical challenge is to understand how productivity will change within the next decades. Recent studies have reported extensive phytoplankton blooms beneath ponded sea ice during summer, indicating that satellite-based Arctic annual primary production estimates may be significantly underestimated. Here we present a unique time-series of a phytoplankton spring bloom observed beneath snow-covered Arctic pack ice. The bloom, dominated by the haptophyte algae Phaeocystis pouchetii, caused near depletion of the surface nitrate inventory and a decline in dissolved inorganic carbon by 16 ± 6 g C m−2. Ocean circulation characteristics in the area indicated that the bloom developed in situ despite the snow-covered sea ice. Leads in the dynamic ice cover provided added sunlight necessary to initiate and sustain the bloom. Phytoplankton blooms beneath snow-covered ice might become more common and widespread in the future Arctic Ocean with frequent lead formation due to thinner and more dynamic sea ice despite projected increases in high-Arctic snowfall. This could alter productivity, marine food webs and carbon sequestration in the Arctic Ocean.

[1] There is an ongoing shift in the Arctic sea ice cover from multiyear ice to seasonal ice. Here we examine the impact of this shift on sea ice albedo. Our analysis of observations from four years of field experiments indicates that seasonal ice undergoes an albedo evolution with seven phases; cold snow, melting snow, pond formation, pond drainage, pond evolution, open water, and freezeup. Once surface ice melt begins, seasonal ice albedos are consistently less than albedos for multiyear ice resulting in more solar heat absorbed in the ice and transmitted to the ocean. The shift from a multiyear to seasonal ice cover has significant implications for the heat and mass budget of the ice and for primary productivity in the upper ocean. There will be enhanced melting of the ice cover and an increase in the amount of sunlight available in the upper ocean.

No abstract

Healy Oden Trans-Arctic Expedition a trans-Arctic survey of the physical properties of the polar ice pack was conducted. The observational program consisted of four broad classes of snow and ice characterization activities: observations made while the ship was in transit, ice station measurements, helicopter survey flights, and the deployment of autonomous ice mass balance buoys. Ice conditions, including ice thicknesses, classes, and concentrations of primary, secondary, and tertiary categories were reported at 2-hour intervals. Pond fractions were large early in the cruise at the southern edge of the ice pack, reaching peak values of 0.5 and averaging 0.25. Ice concentrations ranged from 0.8 to 1.0 north of 79°N, save for an area between 88°30 0 N and 89°30 0 N, where polynyas and thin ice were observed. Surveys of snow depth, ice thickness, and ice properties were conducted at ice stations. Thickness observations suggest a general latitudinal trend of increasing ice thickness moving northward, with considerable variability from floe to floe and within a single floe. Average floe thicknesses varied from 1.0 to >2.8 m, and the standard deviation of thickness on an individual floe was as large as 1 m. Ice crystallography showed a large amount of granular ice. The average optical-equivalent soot content was 4 ng C g À1 for new snow, 8 ng C g À1 for the surface granular layer of multiyear ice, and 18 ng C g À1 for the interior of multiyear ice, indicating a tendency of the particulates to concentrate at the surface with melting.