Bellingshausen and western Antarctic Peninsula region: Pigment biomass and sea-ice spatial/temporal distributions and interannual variabilty

The Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program seeks to obtain a comprehensive understanding of various components of the Antarctic marine ecosystem—the assemblage of plants, microbes, animals, ocean, and sea-ice south of the Antarctic Polar Front. A central hypothesis of the Palmer LTER is that the seasonal and interannual variability of sea ice affects all levels of the Antarctic marine ecosystem, from the timing and magnitude of seasonal primary production to the breeding success and survival of apex predators. In the context of this high-latitude ecosystem we use satellite imagery to examine physical forcing and possible mechanisms influencing the distribution of phytoplankton biomass in the region to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula. We evaluate the spatial and temporal variability of pigment biomass (estimated as chlorophyll-a concentrations using SeaWiFS data) in response to the spatial and temporal variability of sea-ice extent (estimated from passive microwave satellite data). While the ocean-color data record is relatively short (7 years) and contains high interannual variability, there are persistent spatial patterns of phytoplankton biomass that indicate important regional-scale physical mechanisms including: the marginal ice zone and its impact on the mixed-layer depth, the timing of spring sea-ice retreat, the importance of the southern Antarctic Circumpolar front, and teleconnections with sub-polar regions. The SeaWIFS imagery presented here provides the most complete synoptic space/time views of phytoplankton biomass within this region to date. These observations suggest that the southern Antarctic Circumpolar front may have a more profound influence on the western Antarctic Peninsula ecosystem than previously thought.