Correlations among phytoplankton biomass, sea ice and wind speed in Barents Sea and the future climate trends

• Published in: Polar Science
• Main Authors: Qu, Bo, Gabric, Albert J, Zeng, Meifang, Liu, Xiao
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020
• Subjects: Physical sciences; Earth sciences; Biological sciences; Science & Technology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Ecology; Geosciences; Multidisciplinary; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Barents Sea; Phytoplankton; Polar Science; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10072/396347; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polar.2020.100525

Global climate closely links with the Arctic Ocean ecosystem especially in the Barents Sea. The distributions and correlations among chlorophyll-a (CHL), sea ice concentration (ICE), wind speed (WIND), sea surface temperature (SST) and mixed layer depth (MLD) are studied within the region of Barents Sea (70°N-80°N, 30°E−40°E) over the period 2003–2013. CHL increased from north to south in general. Ice melted rapidly in the southern region (70°N-75°N) and had less impact than SST on phytoplankton blooming. Melting ice in northern region (75°N-80°N) contributed significant source on phytoplankton development. WIND had negative correlations with CHL in spring blooming season and had positive correlations during autumn. No Full Text