Glaciers, known as the third pole of the planet, play a key role in Arctic ecosystems. Modern climate changes, most evident in the Arctic region, have led to a reduction in the area of glaciers in the Arctic, increased river runoff from small rivers due to the melting of Arctic glaciers, and a radical restructuring of Arctic ecosystems.
This is the conclusion reached by scientists from P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences based on the results of many years of research. The work is being carried out by the Biohydrochemistry Laboratory of the IO RAS in two key regions of the Arctic – the Novaya Zemlya archipelago (Kara Sea) within the framework of a grant from the Russian Science Foundation and the Ecosystems of the Siberian Arctic Seas program under the supervision of Academician M.V. Flint and on the
Spitsbergen archipelago together with the State Oceanographic Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Norwegian Institute of Water Research NIVA.
Field observations and calculations have shown that the shrinking summer ice cover and increasing continental runoff into the Arctic Ocean affect ocean processes linked to the balance of carbon and fresh water. This, in turn, affects the high-latitude marine ecosystem. Field and experimental data show that glacial runoff from the Arctic archipelagos contains a significant amount of biogenic elements - nutrients, their concentration in water affects the activity of coastal ecosystems in the form of a contribution to the primary production of the coastal regions of the Arctic.
Research has also shown that bedrock underlying glacial flows is the main source of nutrients for coastal ecosystems. Based on the work conducted from 2007 to the present, scientists have concluded that it is necessary to organize scientific monitoring in the bays of Novaya Zemlya to avoid disruption of the functioning of pelagic ecosystems as a result of increasing anthropogenic load and accumulated environmental risks.
A study of the modern biogeochemical regime of a fjord system conducted during five expeditions to Templefjord, West Spitsbergen, allowed us to estimate the concentrations of the studied parameters in different environments (water, ice, snow, bottom sediments) and to describe the seasonal dynamics in the water column. The results demonstrated the significant influence of coastal runoff and glacial meltwater on the carbonate system and the biogenic regime in Templefjord and can be extrapolated to other Arctic fjord systems.
Tsivolki Bay (Novaya Zemlya), Sickle-and-Molot Glacier. Photo by Galina Abyzova
