Polar circulation and ecosystems are rapidly changing due to climate shifts. Availability of nutrients and stratification are expected to alter primary production and the export of carbon. In the Southern Ocean, unique stressors shape ecosystems including cold temperatures, ice coverage, light limitation, and scarcity in the trace nutrients iron and manganese. In the subarctic, melting from the Greenland Ice Sheet can have large implications for the marine ecosystem. Faculty have coordinated field campaigns in the Southern Ocean, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, Labrador Sea, and off the coast of Greenland, and they are leading laboratory experiments, remote sensing, and modeling efforts to investigate controls on ocean circulation, trace element distributions and cycling, carbon dynamics, phytoplankton physiology and behavior, invertebrate diversity, contributions to ecosystem function, and the role of melting ice on global circulation and polar ecosystems.
