Guest post by David Middleton
NASA Discovers Unprecedented Blooms of Ocean Plant Life…
“Part of NASA’s mission is pioneering scientific discovery, and this is like finding the Amazon rainforest in the middle of the Mojave Desert,” said Paula Bontempi, NASA’s ocean biology and biogeochemistry program manager in Washington.
Or maybe it’s more like finding a lot of trees in a part of the Amazon rainforest where you never bothered to look for trees before. Sub-ice phytoplankton blooms are not exactly “unprecedented.”
Dense sub-ice bloom of dinoflagellates in the Baltic Sea, potentially limited by high pH
Kristian Spilling
Finnish Environment Institute, PO Box 140, 00251 Helsinki, Finland
Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, 10900 Hanko, Finland
Received February 27, 2007.
Accepted June 27, 2007.
Final version accepted August 15, 2007
Abstract
The phytoplankton community, carbon assimilation, chlorophyll a (Chl a), pH, light and attenuation and inorganic nutrients were monitored under the ice in the coastal Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea. Maximum ice and snow thickness was 40 and 15 cm, respectively. Freshwater influence had created a halocline 1–2 m below the ice–water interface, and above this halocline, a dense bloom of dinoflagellates developed (max: >300 μg Chl a L−1). The photosynthetic uptake of carbon dioxide by this “red tide” increased the pH to a maximum of 9.0. The sub-ice phytoplankton community was dominated by the dinoflagellate Woloszynskia halophila (max: 3.6 × 107 cells L−1). The pH tolerance of this species was studied in a monoculture and the results indicate that pH >8.5 limits growth of this species at ambient irradiance. This study shows that primary productivity may raise the pH to growth limiting levels, even in marine, low-light environments where pH normally is not considered important.
INTRODUCTION
The Baltic Sea is a semi-enclosed, brackish ocean where ice is an important element of the ecosystem during winter. In the northern part of Baltic Sea and western part of Gulf of Finland, the probability of freezing is >90% and ice coverage normally lasts for 2–6 months (Mälkki and Tamsalu, 1985). There have been observations of dense, dinoflagellate dominated blooms under the ice in the Baltic Sea, but there is relatively little information about this phenomenon (Larsen et al., 1995; Haecky et al., 1998; Kremp and Heiskanen, 1999). These types of blooms are often called red tides because of the obvious discoloration of the water, but a cold-water red tide is very much in contrast to the main distribution and bloom patterns of dinoflagellates, which typically avoid winter and spring in temperate areas (Smayda and Reynolds, 2001).
[…]
For an even earlier discussion of phytoplankton blooms under Arctic pack ice, see Gradinger, 1996.
Maybe NASA should stick to Aeronautics and Space.
“Part of NASA’s mission is pioneering scientific discovery, and this is like finding the Amazon rainforest in the middle of the Mojave Desert,”
I guess don’t trust the thinking of someone that comes up with such a simile.
The money quotes from the article:
1. “Fast-growing phytoplankton consume large amounts of carbon dioxide.”
2. “The microscopic plants, called phytoplankton, are the base of the marine food chain.”
3. “These growth rates are among the highest ever measured for polar water.”
4. “…scientists will have to reassess the amount of carbon dioxide entering the Arctic Ocean through biological activity if the under-ice blooms turn out to be common… ”
5. “At this point we don’t know whether these rich phytoplankton blooms have been happening in the Arctic for a long time and we just haven’t observed them before,”
Or in other words, the authors admit:
1. CO2 is plant food.
2. The combination of increased CO2 and sunlight powerfully stimulate the marine food chain.
3. The models don’t account for this.
4. We have no idea of the significance of this phenomenon.
It’s all good!
So.. Did they rule-out the possibility of the phytoplankton being moved under the Sea-Ice by ocean currents, or rule-out that this type of phytoplankton grows around vents on the Ocean floor and float to the surface during the summer melting season? It actually looks bright enough for a phytoplankton bloom under the sea-Ice for it to be a normal occurrence.
Steve Short says:
September 29, 2012 at 4:47 am
Silent Spring was filled with scientific errors and led to the death of literally millions due to the ban of DDT.
Steve you are absolutely correct. Thank you for your posting.
The, “….this is like finding the Amazon rainforest in the middle of the Mojave Desert,” analogy is more suited to the deep ocean life found around the extreme heat vents emanating from numerous ocean floor sites. But, that would bring attention to a natural heat source, with oceanic life forms thriving at extremely high temperatures with NO light from the sun.
I would be surprised if any marine biologist or oceanographer would not expect to see aquatic algal blooms wherever the suns rays go from the darker winter months to the long days of summer. They might also expect species that prefer colder temperatures. I hope they didn’t spend a lot of money or burn a lot of fossil fuel on this one.
More “news” items equate to more funding, hence an unprecedented number of “unprecedented” findings.
LOL,
I read about such blooms way back in the 1970’s!
From Nature is this from June 2012:
Huge phytoplankton bloom found under Arctic ice
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/06/huge-phytoplankton-bloom-found-under-arctic-ice.html
He he…
Steve Short says:
September 29, 2012 at 4:47 am
…..These are people who will insist, straight-faced, in any forum, that a pH of 9 – 10 in an algal bloom in a freshwater lake surrounded by miles of pristine wilderness must, by definition, be the evil work of some nasty person or mine who discharged a toxic alkali into the lake….
Seems none of these dolts can retain the simple fact that all cyanobacteria abstract CO2 and bicarbonate from water and ‘excrete’ oxygen…..and have been doing so for (choke) a mere 3 billion years or so……
Given this week is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson I claim that foul volume did not spawn any ‘great awakening’ of deep environmental wisdom. Rather, it sparked a great green religion from whose bone-headedness and diverse sophistries we suffer to this day……
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Great comment.
I’ve observed the same sort of bloom in the pond on my property every year. The first time I observed the bloom it was, “unprecedented”, for me at least.
I prefer Aldo Leopold’s, “A Sand County Almanac” to the leftist ideologyl environmental literature of late.
These tiny creatures are probably consuming over ten times the amount of atmospheric CO2 than we will ever produce by burning fossil fuels. When the sun is shining, they will eat up dissolved CO2 as fast as it is made available. Under the ice that CO2 has to be transported from open sea where it is being absorbed by cold water. That rate process is limited by how fast the air containing the CO2 is delivered to the surface. pH is not limiting phytoplankton growth. The high pH shows us that under the ice the phytoplankton is running out of dissolved CO2 to consume.
Another factor to consider is the fractionation process these creatures perform and how it effects the observed 13CO2/12CO2 index. With the Arctic Ocean being the major sink for CO2, we should expect this frationation process to be a major factor in changing this observed atmospheric index.
Mosher writes “That is not what they are claiming is new. read the article more carefully.”
From the paper “the most likely explanation for the decreased carbon assimilation with increasing pH for W. halophila was changes in membrane transport processes and regulation of the intracellular pH.”
You’re right. They do appear to be implying the bloom acts as a kind of buffer between the atmospheric CO2 dissolving at the ocean interface and descending to the ocean depths by maintaining growth rates until sufficient CO2 has been “captured” by the bloom thus effectively sequesting CO2 at the surface.
But we’d never have thought life could flourish beneath the ice like that, they think! They have a lot to learn about life I’d say. Most of the AGW scientists’ assumptions about how life works seems to focus (incorrectly) on the chemistry alone.
Eric Huxter says:
September 29, 2012 at 1:58 am
Amazing what you find when you look for it.
Blooms are not so uncommon under Antarctic ice apparently.
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Maybe the same phenomenon that allows for record high ice extent in the Antarctic while the globe is heating catastrophically makes “unprecedented” algal blooms commonplace down there.
/sarc
“phenomenon”
CEH says:
September 29, 2012 at 3:29 am
The NASA report was from research involving “Arctic waters in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas along Alaska’s western and northern coasts onboard a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker.”
The other reference in the main post was to “Sub-ice phytoplankton blooms are not exactly unprecedented.” Thank you for clarifying that the ocean can ice over outside of the Arctic.
Steven Mosher says:
September 29, 2012 at 1:20 am
Yes, that is in fact what they are claiming is new. Read the article more carefully yourself. They not only thought sub-ice blooms are unprecedented, they thought they were impossible.
See that part about how under-ice phytoplankton blooms are a “complete surprise” to the leader of the study? How is that not a claim that sub-ice blooms are “unprecedented”?
w.
Maybe these unprecedented algal blooms will attract some whales. It’s so rare to spot them in polar waters.
(sarc)
Steven Mosher says:
“Sub-ice phytoplankton blooms are not exactly “unprecedented.”
That is not what they are claiming is new. read the article more carefully.
Thats is precisely what they are claiming is new:
“Phytoplankton were thought to grow in the Arctic Ocean only after sea ice had retreated for the summer. Scientists now think that the thinning Arctic ice is allowing sunlight to reach the waters under the sea ice, catalyzing the plant blooms where they had never been observed. ”
&
“If someone had asked me before the expedition whether we would see under-ice blooms, I would have told them it was impossible,” said Kevin Arrigo of Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., leader of the ICESCAPE mission and lead author of the new study. “This discovery was a complete surprise.”
Yet another drive-by fail by the wholey unjustified arrogance of Mosher.
I propose that Steven Mosher be required to conclusively demonstrate that he, himself has read the article in question before posting another one of his inane comments.
Has any one ever entertained the idea that Rachel Carson was going deaf?
Arctic plankton are under strong competitive pressure to grow fast during the short spring. So it makes good sense to have a “seed” population under the ice, to get a head start in numbers when the ice melts and the intense spring growth starts.
When I was in the Arctic in the 1970’s, the scientists diving under the ice said they were surprised by the amount of life under the ice.
They referred to sewage in the as “enriched”. It did result in more growth in the water.
Willis:
You’ve spent time in the commercial fishery world, so check me if I’m not following this correctly. Am I crazy or are they trying to say green water (inshore water) is supposed to be as sterile as blue water (deep blue sea, away from the influence of land)? The normal pic above is blue water, pretty but not full of food. The greenish pic above is called green water by fisherpeople and is very prolific water.
The introduction to the paper identifies the water as being ‘brackish’. Brackish water is less saline than ocean water. Brackish water is also where abundant life occurs, e.g. estuaries, bays, fjords, etc. and is the reason these systems are spawning/feeding grounds for many species.
Surprise surprise surprise, (Gomer Pyle style), They never checked before, so they’re astonished that they found it. Sure doesn’t give them the right to speculate wildly. Of course, they included AGW since that is the guarantee the feed trough will fill for next few years.
Meanwhile, the population of Bowhead Whales continues to increase and an unexpected rate, thanks largely to plentiful food supplies of Zooplankton supported by Arctic Phytoplankton blooms.
Extending 72 miles into the ice pack… Is that as far as they looked or is that where it ended as they looked farther? It is not surprising that there is more light under thin ice. However the presence of a melt pond might be acting to trap light that refracts through the water’s surface. Since low angle sunlight is refracted into a steeper ray in the liquid water, the light then has a shorter path through the ice to the water below.
And people wonder how the arctic got to be so oil and natural gas rich. Where ever there’s vast phytoplankton blooms with regularity there’s going to be vast hydrocarbon deposits.
The fact there’s huge hydrocarbon deposits in the arctic regions simply bares out this process of phytoplankton blooms being as ancient as the Arctic Basin itself.
…”in contrast to the main distribution and bloom patterns of dinoflagellates, which typically avoid winter and spring in temperate areas (Smayda and Reynolds, 2001).”
This is poorly written.
How, pray tell, do any organisms “avoid” winter and spring in temperate areas? Just asking. Anthropomorphizing in science writing is one of my pet peeves.
atheok says:
“Am I crazy or are they trying to say green water (inshore water) is supposed to be as sterile as blue water (deep blue sea, away from the influence of land)? The normal pic above is blue water, pretty but not full of food. The greenish pic above is called green water by fisherpeople and is very prolific water.”
Indeed! While on a field trip to the Bahamas, several geology professors stressed that the reason the beautiful water was so crystal clear was because it was sterile. It contains almost nothing: almost no plankton that forms the base of the food chain, and not enough nutrients to support their growth. One, who had studied the effects of fertilizing the oceans with iron, opined that some scientific administration (like NASA) should study how to use effluent of our coastal cities to enhance the fertilization of the oceans. The others agreed, but realized that given the current political climate, it was unlikely to happen.