'Megabloom' of tiny plants under Arctic sea ice tied to climate change

'Megabloom' of tiny plants under Arctic sea ice tied to climate change
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By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com

Experts were shocked to find a thick, 60-mile-long "phytoplankton megabloom" under Arctic sea ice, announcing in a study Thursday that ice made thinner by warming temperatures has, for now at least, created ideal conditions for the microscopic, single-cell plants to flourish.

More blooms are likely hidden under the ice, making for "ecological shifts" in Arctic waters that favor some species over others since phytoplankton are the base of the marine food chain, Stanford professor and lead researcher Kevin Arrigo told msnbc.com.

Scientists had thought Arctic phytoplankton blooms only happened after sea ice melted in summer, so the discovery is "like finding the Amazon rainforest in the middle of the Mojave Desert," added Paula Bontempi, who manages the ocean biology program at NASA, which funded the research.

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The team discovered the bloom in July 2011 in thin sea ice pocketed with ponds of melted ice on the Chukchi Sea off northern Alaska. Arctic sea ice has been shrinking and thinning in summer since 1979, the result of warming temperatures over the region.

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