New study reveals surprising link between West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) retreat and algae growth over the past 500,000 years.
New study reveals surprising link between West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) retreat and algae growth over the past 500,000 years.
A new study in Nature Geoscience reveals that changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) closely tracked marine algae growth in the Southern Ocean over previous glacial cycles, but not in the way scientists expected.
The key factor is iron-rich sediments transported by icebergs from West Antarctica.
Iron acts like fertilizer for algae. But when analyzing a sediment core taken from the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean in 2001, more than three miles below the water’s surface, researchers were surprised to find that a high iron supply did not accelerate marine algae growth.
Read More: Columbia Climate School
Iceberg in the Amundsen Sea, off the coast of western Antarctica. (Photo Credit: Johann P. Klages)
