Your search

Diatoméer – alger med skall av silisium, som er helt avhengige av næringsstoffet silikat – dominerer fytoplankton oppblomstringer og spiller en nøkkelrolle i havets økosystemer og i global karbonsyklus. Vi viser hvordan forskjeller i økologiske karakteristikker av dominerende arter i Sørishavet, som ble observert under det in situ europeiske jerngjødslings eksperimentet (European Iron Fertilization Experiment - EIFEX), kan påvirke karbon og silisium syklusene i havet. Vi argumenterer for at økologien til tykkskallete diatomé arter, som er selektert for av sterk beiting fra kopepoder, tar opp silikat fremfor andre næringsstoffer i det dype Sørishavet og underliggende sedimenter. Fordi Sørishavet er en viktig sentral for oseanisk fordeling av næringsstoffer, selektivt opptak av silikat i dette havområdet begrenser oppblomstringene av diatoméer i andre deler av verdenshavene, noe som potensielt får konsekvenser for biotisk opptak av karbon i hele verdens havområder.

Weddell Sea hydrography and circulation is driven by influx of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) at its eastern margin. Entrainment and upwelling of this high-nutrient, oxygen-depleted water mass within the Weddell Gyre also supports the mesopelagic ecosystem within the gyre and the rich benthic community along the Antarctic shelf. We used Conductivity-Temperature-Depth Satellite Relay Data Loggers (CTD-SRDLs) to examine the importance of hydrographic variability, ice cover and season on the movements and diving behavior of southern elephant seals in the eastern Weddell Sea region during their overwinter feeding trips from Bouvetøya. We developed a model describing diving depth as a function of local time of day to account for diel variation in diving behavior. Seals feeding in pelagic ice-free waters during the summer months displayed clear diel variation, with daytime dives reaching 500-1500 m and night-time targeting of the subsurface temperature and salinity maxima characteristic of CDW around 150-300 meters. This pattern was especially clear in the Weddell Cold and Warm Regimes within the gyre, occurred in the ACC, but was absent at the Dronning Maud Land shelf region where seals fed benthically. Diel variation was almost absent in pelagic feeding areas covered by winter sea ice, where seals targeted deep layers around 500-700 meters. Thus, elephant seals appear to switch between feeding strategies when moving between oceanic regimes or in response to seasonal environmental conditions. While they are on the shelf, they exploit the locally-rich benthic ecosystem, while diel patterns in pelagic waters in summer are probably a response to strong vertical migration patterns within the copepod-based pelagic food web. Behavioral flexibility that permits such switching between different feeding strategies may have important consequences regarding the potential for southern elephant seals to adapt to variability or systematic changes in their environment resulting from climate change.

Holocene climate variability in the southeast Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean and Antarctic is assessed and quantified through integration of available marine sediment core and Antarctic ice core data. We use summer sea surface temperature (SSST) and sea ice presence (SIP) reconstructions from two marine sediment cores recovered north (50 °S) and south (53.2 °S) of the present day Antarctic Polar Front (APF), as well as an atmospheric temperature and sea ice proxy from the EPICA ice core from Dronning Maud Land (EDML). We find reasonably good agreement in the timing of climate evolution in the analyzed series. Almost all records show a gradual glacial-to-Holocene climate transition, interrupted by the Antarctic cold reversal around 13 000 cal yr BP, and early Holocene climatic optimum (HCO) at about 11 000 cal yr BP. During the early HCO, the seasonal ice cover retreats to south of 53 °S; it then readvances in the course of the mid- to late Holocene. The maximum winter sea ice edge position during the recent 10 000 years varied mainly within 51–53 °S, with sporadic growth to north of 50 °S, a position similar to that during the last glacial. The onset of the Neoglacial period after ca 4000 yr BP is associated with a steepening of the SSST gradient between the marine core sites, strengthening of the westerlies and cooling in the inland ice sheet. The agreement in timing between elevated SSST during the early HCO and decreased deuterium excess in EDML and other ice cores from different locations in the East Antarctic suggests that the retreat of sea ice during the early HCO and weakening of the APF was a general feature of the East Antarctic climate during that time.

Miniature electronic data recorders and transmitters have revolutionized the way we study animals over the past decades, particularly marine animals at sea. But, very recently, animal-borne instruments have also been designed and implemented that provide in situ hydrographic data from parts of the oceans where little or no other data are currently available (even from beneath the ice in polar regions). Ocean data is delivered from animal-borne instruments via satellites in near real-time, which would enrich the Global Ocean Observing System if animal-borne instruments were deployed systematically. In the last 10 years, studies involving more than 10 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greenland, Norway, South Africa, UK, USA) have demonstrated how highly accurate oceanographic sensors, integrated into standard animal, biologging instruments, can provide data of equal or better quality than XBT/XCTD data. Here, we present some of the pioneering studies and demonstrate that we now have enough information for many marine species to predict where they will go – within reasonable limits. Thus, we can direct sampling effort to particularly interesting and productive regions and maximize data return. In the future, biologging could certainly play an important part in the Global Ocean Observing System, by providing complementary data to more traditional sampling technologies - especially in the high latitudes. This paper will make a core contribution to the Plenary Sessions 4A, 4B and 5A and will be relevant to 2A, 2B and 3A.

In recent years, the international “Southern Elephant seals as Oceanographic Samplers” (SEaOS) project has deployed miniaturized conductivity-temperature-depth satellite-relayed data loggers (CTD-SRDL) on elephant seals 1) to study their winter foraging ecology in relation to oceanographic conditions, and 2) to collect hydrographic data from polar regions, which are otherwise sparsely sampled. We summarize here the main results that have been published in both science components since 2003/2004. Instrumented southern elephant seals visit different regions within the Southern Ocean (frontal zones, continental shelf, and/or ice covered areas) and forage in a variety of different water masses (e.g. Circumpolar Deep Water upwelling regions, High Salinity Shelf Water), depending on their geographic distribution. Adult females and juvenile males from Kerguelen Is. forage pelagically in frontal zones of the Southern Indian Ocean, while adult males forage benthically over the Kerguelen Plateau and the Antarctic Continental Shelf, with the two groups feeding at different trophic levels as shown by stable isotopes analysis. Oceanographic studies using the data collected from the seals have, to date, concentrated on circumpolar and regional studies of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) circulation. The temperature and salinity profiles documented by elephant seals at high latitudes, including below sea ice, have permitted quasi-circumpolar mapping of the southernmost fronts of the ACC. By merging conventional data and the high temporal and spatial resolution data collected by seal-borne SRDLs, it has been possible to describe precisely 1) the large-scale features of the ACC in the South Atlantic and its variability; 2) the circulation pattern over the Kerguelen plateau, revealing that the poorly known Fawn Trough concentrates an important proportion of the ACC flow in that region. Seals that foraged in ice covered areas have made eulerian time series available that have allowed for the estimation of sea ice formation rates, a parameter that is otherwise difficult to obtain, while also providing a unique description of the wintertime ocean circulation over the central Weddell Sea continental shelf. Finally, we present the first data collected by a newly-developed fluorescence sensor that as been embedded in the regular CTD-SRDL and deployed on elephant seals at Kerguelen. The fluorometer data obtained have offered the first synoptic view of the 3 dimensional distribution of temperature, salinity and fluorescence over a vast sector of the Southern Indian Ocean, allowing us to describe both vertical and horizontal variations in chlorophyll. This paper will make a core contribution to the Plenary Sessions 2C, 3A and 4A, and will be relevant to 2A and 2B.

Polar shores probably represent the most dynamic and extremely disturbed environments on the globe. Nevertheless intense battles amongst sessile organisms for space are commonplace on hard substrata, mainly between fast-growing pioneer species. In this study we examined spatial interactions in encrusting species at 3 sites within each of 2 high Arctic localities, Horsundfjord (77°N) and Kongsfjord (79°N) in Spitsbergen, and 2 Antarctic localities, Signy Island (60°S) and Adelaide Island (68°S). In both polar regions 1 to 11% of encrusting fauna were involved in intraspecific interactions. Intraspecific competition was common; it usually involved just 1 or 2 pioneer species, mainly ended in tied outcomes, and most variability was at a local scale. The proportion of intraspecific encounters varied considerably at local (km) scales (19 to 99% intraspecific at different sites), reflecting an extremely patchy environment due to ice scour. Most intraspecific encounters resulted in ties (stand-offs) and again most variability was at a local scale. Many intraspecific encounters were constructive, forming large (>1 m3) foliaceous colonies (termed bioconstructions) whose 3D structures can harbour rich biotas. In other colonies intraspecific competition caused crowding and accelerated ovicell production (reproductive activity). Homosyndrome (fusion) was not observed in the Arctic and was rare in the Antarctic, where its frequency differed significantly between competitor identities. We found that the likelihood of meeting conspecifics versus other species and of tied outcomes in encounters was related to the performance of species in interspecific competition: ties were most common, and homosyndrome only occurred in poor competitors. In the context of rapid Arctic and west Antarctic warming and ice-loading of nearshore waters, we predict strongly changing patterns of intraspecific competition. Indeed we suggest that decreased patchiness of intra- versus interspecific competition and decreased levels of intraspecific competition should be strong indicators of increases in surface water ice-loading from ice-sheet collapses. KEYWORDS: Sublittoral · Benthos · Bioconstruction · Climate change · Homosyndrome

Conveyor belt circulation controls global climate through heat and water fluxes with atmosphere and from tropical to polar regions and vice versa. This circulation, commonly referred to as thermohaline circulation (THC), seems to have millennium time scale and nowadays-a non-glacial period-appears to be as rather stable. However, concern is raised by the buildup Of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (IPCC, Third assessment report: Climate Change 2001, A contribution of working group I, II and III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, UK) 2001, http://www.ipcc.ch) as these may affect the THC conveyor paths. Since it is widely recognized that dense-water formation sites act as primary sources in strengthening quasi-stable THC paths (Stommel H., Tellus, 13 (1961) 224), in order to simulate properly the consequences of such scenarios a better understanding of these oceanic processes is needed. To successfully model these processes, air-sea-ice-integrated modelling approaches are often required. Here we focus on two polar regions using the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS). In the first region investigated, the North Atlantic-Arctic, where open-ocean deep convection and open-sea ice formation and dispersion under the intense air-sea interactions are the major engines, we use a new version of the coupled hydrodynamic-ice ROMS model. The second area belongs to the Antarctica region inside the Southern Ocean, where brine rejections during ice formation inside shelf seas origin dense water that, flowing along the continental slope, overflow becoming eventually abyssal waters. Results show how nowadays integrated-modelling tasks have become more and more feasible and effective; numerical simulations dealing with large computational domains or challenging different climate scenarios can be run on multi-processors platforms and on systems like LINUX clusters, made of the same hardware as PCs, and codes have been accordingly modified. This relevant numerical help coming from the computer science can now allow scientists to devote larger attention in the efforts of understanding the deep mechanisms of such complex processes.

The mass balance of the Antarctic ice cap, its stability, and the role of the surrounding ice shelf in bottomwater mass formation is, to a large extent, dictated by processes associated with subsurface freezing and melting, where the submerged ice meets the surrounding ocean. It is demonstrated how multifrequency ground-penetrating radar data collected at the Riiser-Larsenisen can be used to examine the physical conditions of the ice-shelf subsurface. The received radar signal from three different frequency intervals, 10-30, 155-170, and 330-360 MHz (range of wavelengths from 15 to 0.5 m in the ice), was analyzed by using a plane reflector model. It is demonstrated that the data can be successfully used to distinguish between types of ice at the ice-ocean interface, such as for freezing marine ice, melting marine ice, melting meteoric ice from the ice cap, and melting firn/ice. The data analysis shows that the subsurface can be regarded as rough on length scales in the order of 1 m.

Water properties on the continental shelf in the southern Weddell Sea observed during NARP 92/93 are presented. The station distribution includes a section close to the floating ice shelf from the Filchner Depression to the Antarctic Peninsula. Temperature, salinity, oxygen, silicate, CFC-ll and CFC-12 distributions are shown. Melting under the ice shelves, circulation systems, residence times, sediment/water interactions and bottom water formation are discussed. Ice Shelf Water (ISW), which is formed by cooling and melting below the floating ice shelf, seems to be about 10 years older than its parent water mass, which indicates the residence time below the ice shelf. The average melting rate below the Filchner Ronne ice shelf, based on the volume flux of ISW in the Filchner Depression is estimated to be 0.1 m/year. Compared with earlier observations considerable changes were found in the water characteristics and distribution: The temperature of the Weddell Deep Water has increased 0.7°C since 1977. Western Shelf Water, usually dominating the bottom layers in the Filchner Depression and on the Berkner Shelf, was found only in the Ronne Depression.