Importance of Ice Edge Phytoplankton Production in the Southern Ocean

Abstract

B efore the mid-1970s, biological oceanographers considered the Southern Ocean a region characterized by high primary productivity during the short austral summer, this large, pulsed productivity apparintly supported the elevated biomasses observed among higher trophic levels since the early whaling expeditions. Enhanced productivity was thought to follow from increased sunlight during the summer and extremely high nutrient concentrations brought to the surface by a massive circumpolar divergence (Deacon 1982). Several investigators believed that as the amount of incident light increased seasonally, primary production also increased when the critical