The same changes in the Arctic Ocean are quite plain to researchers who venture there by ship. One of them is Jean-Éric Tremblay of Université Laval in Québec, who studies the phytoplankton in the Beaufort Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska and Canada's Northwest Territories. "In the Beaufort Sea the wind acts directly on the surface of the ocean so it's being mixed," Tremblay confirmed. "It looks more like the North Atlantic in the autumn." As for the details about which species of phytoplankton is doing what -- which is critical to see how it affects the food web or carbon cycle of the Arctic -- that's not at all clear yet, Tremblay said. The problem is some phytoplankton species are great for the food web and others are not. Moreover, everything is happening fast, and it's pretty new. "In some places the ice has been away for just one year," Tremblay noted. The water temperature is still too low for some plankton species. But that is likely to change and the perennial sea ice continues to shrink and the Arctic waters are exposed earlier and earlier to sunlight every summer. "We think that in the near future the situation will change." Related Links: Treehugger: Arctic Ice Cap Could Be Gone by Summer How Stuff Works: Arctic Changes: The Baufort Sea and the Tundra |
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