Bio-optical characterization of bottom ice algae in snow-covered landfast sea ice in Baffin Bay, Nunavut

• Main Author: Quiring, Christine
• Other Authors: Mundy, C.J. (Environment and Geography), Ehn, Jens (Environment and Geography), Niemi, Andrea (Freshwater Institute, Department of Fishers and Oceans) Hanson, Mark (Environment and Geography)
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Arctic; Oceanography; Bio-optics; Ice algae; Baffin Bay; Canada; Nunavut; Baffin; ice algae; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/32513

During late-winter/spring, ice algae often form in a layer at the bottom of Arctic sea ice. This thesis investigates how these ice algae imbedded within a sea ice matrix absorb solar radiation, and how the spectral distribution of the radiation transmitted through the ice can be used to infer ice algae properties. During a case study of landfast ice in Baffin Bay, NU, Canada, it was found that (i) ice algae were highly shade-acclimated with absorption characteristics indicating a strong package effect, a likely result of the deep snow-cover. Furthermore, transmittance spectra (ii) revealed that ice algae attenuated significantly more radiation, (iii) showed evidence of natural fluorescence, and (iv) potentially indicated the presence of an un-sampled algal or cyanobacterial population, than that expected from extracted ice sample analyses in the laboratory. These results emphasize the important role of spectral transmittance observations in informing bio-optical and primary productivity studies of sea ice algae. October 2017