The Lively Ice
I told you, for years I told you: Read "Science News." If you regularly scan this column-that is, if you're someone who has at least a passing interest in matters scientific-you'll like it (and no, they haven't paid me to say this). It's accurate, concise, clear, and one painless way to keep up with what 's going on in northern research. The home team hereabouts plays in the big leagues, which is why you can find the work of friends and neighbors discussed in the pages of national publications like Science News.
For example, the name of Hajo Eicken featured prominently in a recent issue, where the UAF geophysicist was asked to comment upon others' work in his field, the study of sea ice. One quote made Eicken seem a bit stuffy-"It will be interesting to have a closer look at some of the processes that help maintain connected pore space even at low temperatures"-but that effect is misleading. Eicken is no stuffed shirt. He has the slightly tousled, healthy look and distance-seeking gaze of someone thinking about his next cross-country skiing adventure (or, in his case, trek across the ice pack). Even his name seems enthusiastic; it's pronounced almost like a cheer: "Hi yo, I can!"
Right now, there's a lot going on in sea ice studies worthy of enthusiasm. On the grand scale, the interaction of sea ice and changing climate has researchers studying the thickness and extent of the whole Arctic Ocean ice pack. It's easy to envision that higher air temperatures will eventually shrink the ice, since everyone has watched ice melt in the heat. It's a little more difficult to realize that ice can act like the lid on a pan, keeping the seawater's heat at depth from escaping. Less ice could therefore mean colder, deeper water in the polar oceans, with yet more consequences for ocean circulation and thus the weather worldwide. Or, again to quote Eicken as Science News quotes him, sea ice "is most important in the context of climate variability and change, both as an indicator and an agent of climate change."
Just as much enthusiastic work is taking place at the microscopic scale. The fine structure within sea ice dictates the movement of liquid within it. Given not too cold temperatures, say warmer than five degrees below zero Centigrade, water can percolate up through pores in sea ice like hot coffee rising through the tube of an old-fashioned coffeepot. At lower temperatures, water can ooze through the icy mass like slow leaks sneaking through a basement wall.
It's not all physics and chemistry, either. Ice algae clinging to the underside of the pack has long interested marine biologists, but the extent and complexity of the whole ecosystems of tiny plants and animals living within the ice have only recently been recognized. Their importance to the greater system of life within the polar oceans is still subject to lively debate, as are the details of their composition and modes of existence. Or, to steal another of Eicken's useful quotes: "Given the microscopic size of the organisms, even a few connected pores, which do not affect the macrophysics of the system, can decide the fate of a group of organisms."
To the uninterested eye, the great polar ice pack may seem as tedious as a parking lot. Right now, a lot of interested eyes are scanning the ice, finding things as marvelous and complex as anything to be seen in a rain forest or coral reef. These are indeed hot times for sea ice studies.
