Abstract
The investigation on sea-ice biology in combination with physics, chemistry and ecology was carried out in the northwestern Weddell Sea, Antarctica, during the cruise ANT/XX III-7 on board POLARSTERN in the austral winter (August–October) in 2006. The distribution of chlorophyll a was measured and related to sea ice texture. The mean concentrations of chlorophyll a in the sea ice varied considerably with ice texture. The concentration of chlorophyll a per core ranged from 2.10–84.40 µg/dm3 with a mean of 16.56 µg/dm3. And the value of R (chlorophyll a / gross chlorophyll) ranged from 0.79–0.83. These high winter chlorophyll values indicate that primary production is considerable and confirms that there is significant primary production in Antarctic sea ice during winter. Thus this constitutes a major proportion of southern ocean primary production and carbon flux before the sea ice retreats.
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Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 40606012; the Scientific Research Foundation of Third Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration under contract No. 2009015.
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Dai, F., Wang, Z., Yan, X. et al. Physical structure and vertical distribution of chlorophyll a in winter sea ice from the northwestern Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 29, 97–105 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-010-0041-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-010-0041-z