Without Ice Cap As Wave Damper, Arctic Basin May Sustain More Biomass, But Melt Even Faster

[hatrack]

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"It's a very, very quiet ocean," said Luc Rainville of the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, in Seattle. He and his colleague Rebecca A. Woodgate have just published a study in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters reporting how Arctic waters along the continental shelves are getting more turbulent as the summer ice disappears and waves start churning the water like in other oceans.

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The ice-topped Arctic Ocean, on the other hand, is just such a stratified, calm place because sea ice muffles all waves "like a big damper," Rainville explained. But that is becoming less the case as summer sea ice melt is opening up ever wider expanses of water around the northern continental shelves of north America and Asia. All that wave action is expected to bring deep water nutrients closer to the surface, where with sunlight they'll feed summer phytoplankton blooms — forming a vast new foundation for the Arctic marine food web.

Among the more worrisome questions raised by a more turbulent Arctic Ocean is whether or not it could speed up the melting of Arctic sea ice. "That's a big open question," Rainville said. "It's possible because the Arctic is a very peculiar ocean."

Unlike any other ocean basin, the Arctic has a lot of very fresh, very cold water on top from melted ice, what's called the cold halocline layer. But about 100 meters below is very salty, slightly warmer water. If internal waves become powerful enough to mix these waters, then yes, the warmer surface could accelerate the melting of sea ice.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34706785/ns/us_news-environment/

[phantom power]

1. How splendid that we've poked it with a big stick!

:woohoo: