A Comparison of Decimeter Scale Variations of Physical and Photobiological Parameters in a Late Winter First-Year Sea Ice in Southwest Greenland

Small-scale variation in the physical and biological properties of sea ice was examined by collecting nine sea ice cores within 1 m 2 in a land-fast first-year ice in southwest Greenland in late winter. Cores were sectioned in four segments and sea ice physical, biological, and photobiological param...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
Main Authors: Lars Chresten Lund-Hansen, Clara Marie Petersen, Dorte Haubjerg Søgaard, Brian Keith Sorrell
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9010060
https://doaj.org/article/6f02ca23d9654296a1e11ea4a475cf89
Description
Summary:Small-scale variation in the physical and biological properties of sea ice was examined by collecting nine sea ice cores within 1 m 2 in a land-fast first-year ice in southwest Greenland in late winter. Cores were sectioned in four segments and sea ice physical, biological, and photobiological parameters were measured. The main purpose was to explore the decimeter-scale horizontal and vertical variations in common sea ice parameters. ANOVA analyses revealed significant within-core variations for bulk salinity, brine salinity, brine volume, gas volume, chlorophyll a (Chl a ), and the maximum light-limited photosynthetic efficiency (α). Only temperature and bulk salinity variations were significant between cores, and no significant variations were found within or between cores for other photobiological parameters. Power analyses were applied to determine the number of replicates needed to achieve a significance at p < 0.05 with sufficient power, and showed a minimum of four and preferably five replicate cores to detect the observed variability in this first-year ice. It is emphasized that these results only apply to this type of first-year ice in late winter/early spring, and that different variations may apply to other types of ice.