Mineral phosphorus drives glacier algal blooms on the Greenland Ice Sheet

Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is a leading cause of land-ice mass loss and cryosphere-attributed sea level rise. Blooms of pigmented glacier ice algae lower ice albedo and accelerate surface melting in the ice sheet’s southwest sector. Although glacier ice algae cause up to 13% of the surface m...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: McCutcheon, Jenine, Lutz, Stefanie, Williamson, Christopher, Cook, Joseph Mitchell, Tedstone, Andrew A.J., Vanderstraeten, Aubry, Wilson, Siobhan S.A., Stockdale, Anthony, Bonneville, Steeve, Anesio, Alexandre Magno, Yallop, Marian Louise, McQuaid, James B, Tranter, Martyn, Benning, Liane G
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Chimie
Physique
Astronomie
Technologie de l'environnement
contrôle de la pollution
Greenland
glacier
ice algae
Ice Sheet
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/319003
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/319003/1/doi_302647.pdf
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Summary:Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is a leading cause of land-ice mass loss and cryosphere-attributed sea level rise. Blooms of pigmented glacier ice algae lower ice albedo and accelerate surface melting in the ice sheet’s southwest sector. Although glacier ice algae cause up to 13% of the surface melting in this region, the controls on bloom development remain poorly understood. Here we show a direct link between mineral phosphorus in surface ice and glacier ice algae biomass through the quantification of solid and fluid phase phosphorus reservoirs in surface habitats across the southwest ablation zone of the ice sheet. We demonstrate that nutrients from mineral dust likely drive glacier ice algal growth, and thereby identify mineral dust as a secondary control on ice sheet melting. SCOPUS: ar.j info:eu-repo/semantics/published

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