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.
The Biosphere is a riotous orgy of opportunism. Increased bio-productivity is presumed to be a bad thing? False premise fallacy.
So just to be clear……No rainforest was discovered in the Mojave?
How much of this sort of thing is going on? Forget your Arctic cyclones, Albedo altering soot and the other usual culprits. I look forward to a research paper on the effects of research expeditions on the breakup of the Arctic ice cap. Perhaps Lewandowsky can be co-opted to assist with the necessary statistical analysis.
Uh…say WHAT? Prof. Arrigo, you have all the ingredients for under-ice blooms including inorganic (carbon dioxide) and organic carbon sources, macro-and micro-nutrients, sunlight at all sorts of wavelengths (algae prefer red) and conditions to support heterotrophic, mixotrophic and autotrophic metabolism. Why would this discovery constitute a “complete surprise”?
They hand out tenured faculty positions much too quickly these days. Massive Fail.
I distinctly recall something very much like this from last year.
It is questionable that finding out plankton can grow in the Arctic, as it does in the Antarctic, as a great scientific discovery. However, it is fascinating that the AGW obsessed orbit around such a small menu of issues. And they seem to rely on some sort of amnesia to permit them to revisit the same topics time after time and to claim they are new and *proof* of AGW
@E.M.Smith September 29, 2012 at 2:59 am
To get an astounding algae bloom: Fertilize water, add small amount of sun, make cup of coffee… (Making the coffee consumes some time so the algae can do the exponential ramp).
Different algae thrive in different temperatures. Temp is basically irrelevant. Nutrients and sun are what matter.
Oh, and someone ought to point out all the massive oil found under the North Sea and in the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of Arabia and Gulf… The classical oil formation theory says it came from algae blooms. Blooms so thick that dozens of feet of compressed algae end up on the ocean bottom, buried for an anaerobic conversion to oil. So I think it’s very clear that algae blooms of immense size are quite natural…
**********
Early settlers in Australia found a bituminous material around one or more lakes. Thinking that the material had come from underground they spent considerable time and money drilling, fruitlessly. In the end it was realized that the bituminous material was the accumulation of years / centuries of algal mat that had been blown to shore, where most of the organic material decayed away, leaving the bituminous material.
Numerous schemes for growing algae have been proposed from time to time, but nothing has come from it beyond identifying the kinds of algae that offer the best combination of growing conditions and hydrocarbon yield.
Ian
Who started this nonsense about the fragility of life forms, anyway.
All they need is a niche they can exploit.
Solyent green for our future, it is good protein apparently.
Steve Keohane says:
September 29, 2012 at 3:22 am
“Everything becomes exaggerated . . . ”
The first depth (3 feet) is from NASA. The second depth reference (40 and 15 cm) if from Kristian Spilling of the Finnish Environment Institute.
Or did I miss something?
Jack Simmons says:
September 29, 2012 at 7:10 am
Steve Short says:
September 29, 2012 at 4:47 am
You might like to read what Luboš Motl on ‘the reference frame’ had to say:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/09/fifty-years-after-silent-spring.html?m=1
In breaking research news just in, evolutionary anthropologists from Oregon state university announce the alarming finding that humans NOW have an average of 10 fingers and toes, five on each hand and foot.
This raises new concerns that polydactyly might be one more in a growing list of adverse impacts on the biosphere of warming temperatures due to anthropogenic CO2 increase.
As lead researcher Tim Troughsnout explained, “computer modeling of the effect of temperature during development on the expression of the hox gene complex responsible for limb segmentation, shows a clear trend for increasing temperatures resulting in more digits”.
Humans in past ages with pre-industrial CO2 levels may have had fewer fingers and toes. Archaelogical digs of humans from previous centuries and millenia, explained Gary Gravytrain, a post-doc in Troughsnout’s team, “often turn up remains of folks where less than 10 fingers or toes can be found”.
So my model now says that as the oceans become less alkaline, and sea level rises there will be a bloom spiral of algae leading to the oceans taking on the form of pea soup and all other life on the planet will die, engulfed by a tidal wave of goo (;>)
For the effect of microbes when given any food source it is worth reading part-1 of the following at Viv Forbes Carbonsense website:
http://carbon-sense.com/2010/08/23/oil-spills/
Nothing new to see here folks ….
Another ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ finding that has been found several times before; another case of the press release writers sexing up mundane science.
There is nothing discussed here that could not have been reasonably anticipated by any scientist familiar with the opportunistic genius of life, or of the Malthusian self-limiting nature of biochemical processes. This ‘news’ seems to be of the nature of a “Gee Whiz! We looked someplace we have never looked before and we found something we hadn’t seen before!” report.
Life, both micro and macro, modifies climate, on both micro and macro scales. Yep, no doubt about it. GK
Bobby Taylor here. Does anyone remember books? Does anyone remember nuclear submarines transiting under the Arctic icecap? I have no way to prove this, but i didtinctly remember one (or more) photos taken from a submarine showing algae growing to many feet depth beneath at least 12 feet of ice. The comment was something like (not a quote) “We were surprised the sunlight penetrated that thickness of ice, and the unexpecetedly rich biota produced.”
Oho! So NASA is up punching holes in the arctic ice before the September low! (sarc) but I have wondered about all the ice breaking that went on with research ships during the two-year Arctic scientific blitz of a few years ago.
Where did I say that the Gulf of Finland or the Baltic Sea were in the Arctic?
I wrote, “Sub-ice phytoplankton blooms are not exactly ‘unprecedented.’”
And, “For an even earlier discussion of phytoplankton blooms under Arctic pack ice, see Gradinger, 1996.”
You might be thinking of this post:
The Incredible Voyage of Neodenticula Seminae.
Reblogged this on Standard Climate.