In 2020,huge blooms of one bang out of plankton were spotted in the open Arctic.
It might not be.
According toa study published in Nature Geoscience on Monday, shrinking sea ice may spell doom for plankton.
Their research suggests with global warming, these waters will have less nitrogen – negatively affecting plankton productivity.
That sea ice naturally expands in the winter and contracts in the summer.
The Arctic is where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet.
It wasn’t always like that.
During the last ice age and under colder climate, stratification in the Arctic was weak.
Low nitrogen means poor plankton productivity and hurts one of the foundational organisms in the ecosystems food web.
“Given our data, a rise in open Arctic productivity seems unlikely,” Farmer said.
