Antarctica’s sea ice is changing, and so is a vital part of the marine food web that lives within it

Antarctica’s sea ice is changing, and so is a vital part of the marine food web that lives within it

Jacqui Stuart, VUW, CC BY-NC-NDAntarctica is the world’s great cooling unit. This vital part of Earth’s climate system is largely powered by the annual freeze and melt of millions of square kilometres of sea ice around the continent. Our research shows changes to this annual freeze cycle in McMurdo Sound can lead to shifts in the diversity of algal communities that live within the sea ice. At the start of the southern winter, as sea water begins…