As Calving Speeds Up In Antarctica, More Glaciers Plowing Seafloor Devastate Marine Biodiversity

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Fifty years ago, icebergs couldn't move around much because most years, the sea surface was frozen for much of the year. But recently, Barnes said, most years, the sea is frozen for less than 50 days a year. That leaves the icebergs free to drift and blow in the wind until they crash boulders on the sea floor, pounding and scraping away everything that lived on them.

"It's catastrophic, really," Barnes said. "They kill 99 per cent of things they come in contact with." Because most of an iceberg is underwater and some icebergs are massive, they can cause destruction as deep as 600 metres below the surface, Barnes added. That means the area of the sea floor that icebergs are stripping of its biodiversity could be vast.

Barnes is concerned because high biodiversity helps protect ecosystems against disturbances such as invasive species. The low biodiversity left behind by the icebergs mean "the system could now be very fragile and fall over," he said.

When asked if he thought something similar could happen in the Arctic, Barnes said, "Absolutely." He suggested that similar, sudden losses of biodiversity could be happening along other coastlines around the world as a result of other effects of climate change.

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/icebergs-freed-by-climate-change-decimate-antarctic-sea-life-1.2678222