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Melting Sea Ice May Lead to More Life in the Sea

posted by on Sunday April 02 2017, @04:28PM   
from the visit-the-scenic-algae-blooms-of-Antartica dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

When spring arrives in the Arctic, both snow and sea ice melt, forming melt ponds on the surface of the sea ice. Every year, as global warming increases, there are more and larger melt ponds.

Melt ponds provide more light and heat for the ice and the underlying water, but now it turns out that they may also have a more direct and potentially important influence on life in the Arctic waters.

Mats of algae and bacteria can evolve in the melt ponds, which can provide food for marine creatures. This is the conclusion of researchers in the periodical, Polar Biology.

More information:
Heidi Louise Sørensen et al. Nutrient availability limits biological production in Arctic sea ice melt ponds, Polar Biology (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s00300-017-2082-7

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Original Submission

• Re:Prepared to write off coastal cities? (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 03 2017, @05:41AM

  by khallow (3766) on Monday April 03 2017, @05:41AM (#488127) Journal

  I'll point out here that the Earth has heated up something like 0.8 C since 1850. In addition, sea level rise over that time has been around 12 cm. While a considerable portion of the warming has happened in the past half century, it's still a very small amount of warming for the claimed 20 meters per degree C sea level rise. I don't take this claim even remotely seriously.

  On that note, I also wonder how much water makes its way down into all the areas that were once filled with oil.

  None except through human action. Oil wouldn't be there in the first place, if there was a path for surface water to make its way down. Oil is not only less dense than water, it is much less dense than crust materials. It only exists in situations where it has been generated and trapped by an impermeable layer. That prevents ground water from flowing down to it.
  
  But having said that, the most popular way to pump out oil is to pump in water or a water-based mud. I recall calculating the volume of oil ever pumped would fit in a cube 5 km on a side. Even if every drop of oil was replaced underground with water of the same volume, that is an insignificant amount of the Earth's water (even the fresh water on Earth is around 10 million cubic km [usgs.gov] and that is a source which is continually replenished).

  Parent