Plant Life in the Arctic Ocean

Biomedia Report - Mr. Dempsey Period 8 
Report due Monday, October 22

June 5 - June 7, 2012
NASA Discovers Massive Phytoplankton Bloom Under Arctic Sea Ice
Article Website: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ocean-bloom.html

Summary

Scientists have made an important biological discovery in the Arctic Ocean waters. This discovery is as dramatic and unpredictable as finding a rainforest in the middle of a desert. A NASA-sponsored expedition punched through three-foot thick sea ice to find waters richer in microscopic marine plants, essential to all sea life, than any other ocean region on Earth. The discovery, captured on video and shown above, stunned scientists, as an under-ice bloom of this size has never been seen anywhere on the planet. The bloom extended for more than 60 miles from the ice edge into the sea ice pack and concentrated in the top layers of water near the ocean surface. The blooms consisted mainly of diatoms, microscopic plants that make up the base of the marine food chain and require large amounts of sunlight to grow (photosynthesis). The discovery is the result of an oceanographic expedition called ICESCAPE, or Impacts of Climate on EcoSystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment. The mission explored the seas along Alaska's northern coast in the Chukchi Sea, onboard a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker during the summers of 2010 and 2011. Their actual discoveries were not released to the public until June 5 through June 7, 2012. The finding reveals a new consequence of the Arctic's warming climate and provides an important clue to understanding the impacts of a changing climate and environment on the Arctic Ocean and its ecology. If such blooms are widespread, scientists will have to evaluate the impact of these carbon-consumers on the amount of carbon dioxide entering the ocean, and what that means for our changing climate. Relevance to Class In class, we learned about oceans and the different zones that make them up. This video shows that the photic zone in the Arctic Ocean can hold life, if it receives enough sunlight. The viewer of this video can immediately relate the information to what we already learned about in this term. In some parts of the Arctic, due to warming climates melting ice, more sunlight is available in the upper zone of the ocean which allows phytoplankton, microscopic algae and cyanobacteria, to thrive. Phytoplankton are photosynthetic, meaning they require sunlight  to live in certain environment. We learned about food chains, and food webs in class, and the microscopic plants discovered in the NASA mission make up the base of the food chain. That means they are Primary Producers, which we also learned about previously this term. In order to understand anything that happens in the video, you need to have an understanding of what we previously learned in class. Video Info URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uj94fRn15c Publisher of Video: docolovers Date of Publication: July 2, 2012