Research area: During the course of two expeditions to the Greenland ice sheet in May and July 2008, Bhatia and her colleagues collected samples from sites at three land-terminating glaciers. The meltwater from these glaciers travels through a flood plain and eventually drains into Qasigiatsigit Lake, before finally emptying into the fjord. (courtesy Maya Bhatia, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
All living organisms rely on iron as an essential nutrient. In the ocean, iron’s abundance or scarcity means all the difference as it fuels the growth of plankton, the base of the ocean’s food web.
A new study by biogeochemists and glaciologists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) identifies a unexpectedly large source of iron to the North Atlantic – meltwater from glaciers and ice sheets, which may stimulate plankton growth during spring and summer. This source is likely to increase as melting of the Greenland ice sheet escalates under a…
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