Biogeosciences, 8, 515–524, 2011
www.biogeosciences.net/8/515/2011/
doi:10.5194/bg-8-515-2011
© Author(s) 2011. CC Attribution 3.0 License.

Biogeosciences

Near-ubiquity of ice-edge blooms in the Arctic
M. Perrette1,* , A. Yool1 , G. D. Quartly1 , and E. E. Popova1
1 National
* now

Oceanography Centre; Univ. of Southampton Waterfront Campus, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK
at: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Telegrafenberg A31, 14412 Potsdam, Germany

Received: 22 September 2010 – Published in Biogeosciences Discuss.: 4 November 2010
Revised: 10 February 2011 – Accepted: 15 February 2011 – Published: 25 February 2011

Abstract. Ice-edge blooms are significant features of Arctic
primary production, yet have received relatively little attention. Here we combine satellite ocean colour and sea-ice data
in a pan-Arctic study. Ice-edge blooms occur in all seasonally ice-covered areas and from spring to late summer, being
observed in 77–89% of locations for which adequate data exist, and usually peaking within 20 days of ice retreat. They
sometimes form long belts along the ice-edge (greater than
100 km), although smaller structures were also found. The
bloom peak is on average more than 1 mg m−3 , with major
blooms more than 10 mg m−3 , and is usually located close
to the ice-edge, though not always. Some propagate behind
the receding ice-edge over hundreds of kilometres and over
several months, while others remain stationary. The strong
connection between ice retreat and productivity suggests that
the ongoing changes in Arctic sea-ice may have a significant
impact on higher trophic levels and local fish stocks.

1

Introduction

The classical picture of Arctic ice-edge phytoplankton
blooms found in the literature – mainly based on cruise transects – is of a long but narrow (20–100 km) band along the
ice-edge, moving northward as the ice breaks up and melts
over spring and summer (Sakshaug and Skjoldal, 1989).
They differ from more traditional open-water blooms with
respect to the nature of water column stratification, here induced primarily by freshwater input instead of solar heating.
When sea-ice breaks up and melts, there is an input of freshwater to the surface that induces strong stratification. Another causal factor is increased solar irradiance at the surface
as ice cover shrinks. Since irradiance is typically sufficient
Correspondence to: M. Perrette
(mahe.perrette@pik-potsdam.de)

by the time ice cover recedes, Sverdrup’s (1953) criterion of
a mixed layer shallower than the critical depth is met, making
the light regime suitable for phytoplankton growth. Ice-edge
blooms are generally understood as short-lived phenomena
that quickly strip out the nutrients of the shallow (15–35 m)
surface mixed layer characteristic of seasonally ice-covered
waters (Niebauer, 1991). The area located between the multiyear ice and maximal extent is the seasonal ice cover, and this
forms the subject of this study, with a particular focus on the
marginal ice zone (MIZ), which is the region of recent ice
melt.
Ice-edge phytoplankton blooms have been detected from
cruises in many locations including Bering Sea (Alexander
and Niebauer, 1981; Niebauer et al., 1995), Chukchi and
Beaufort Seas (Hill et al., 2005; Sukhanova et al., 2009),
Canadian Archipelago (Klein et al., 2002; Tremblay et al.,
2006), Greenland Sea (Smith et al., 1997), Barents Sea
(Luchetta et al., 2000; Hegseth and Sundfjord, 2008), and
also in the Southern Ocean (Smith and Nelson, 1985). In
the Barents Sea and on the Bering Shelf they are thought
to account for 50–65% of annual primary production (Sakshaug, 2004). Indications of ice-edge blooms had been noted
in ocean colour imagery from the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (e.g. Maynard, 1986; Maynard et al., 1987; Mitchell et
al., 1991; Kögeler and Rey, 1999) but detailed investigations
were not possible on account of its poor sampling due to limited onboard storage, and underestimation problems close to
ice due to a “ringing effect” as the scan line moved from
bright to dark features (Mitchell et al., 1991). The launch
of the SeaWiFS in 1997 ushered in a new era of long-term
continuous ocean colour observations, with the whole globe
sampled every two days, albeit that in some places cloud frequently obscures the surface. However, the potential of the
SeaWiFS archive for the investigation of ice-edge blooms
has only led to a few publications to date (e.g. Arrigo and
van Dijken, 2004), and thus a primary aim of this study is
to fill this gap and investigate their existence at the large

Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

