Chinese Journal of Nature ›› 2012, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (2): 96-101.

• Progress • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Quick Change of Marine Environment with Ecological Response in the Arctic Ocean

 HE Jian-Feng, ZHANG Fang   

  1. ①Professor,②Associate Professor, The Key Laboratory for Polar Science of SOA, Polar Research Institute of China, Shanghai 200136, China
  • Received:2012-01-05 Revised:2012-02-05 Online:2012-04-25 Published:2012-04-25

Abstract: The environment of Arctic Ocean are changing quickly with the global warming, e.g., the increase of water temperature and the descent of water salinity, the decrease of ice coverage and ice volume in summer, the increase of fresh water influx, and the occurrence of sea water acidification. These changes significantly influence the iceassociated ecosystem. The previous studies suggest that the habitats of the iceassociated organisms turn worse, the size of the primary producers become smaller, the decrease of ice algae decline the production of benthos, and the invasion of subArctic species influence the local species. Because the variations of Arctic Ocean environment and ecosystem exceed greatly what we expected and the knowledge is limited, a most important task for us in the coming years is to improve the observation systems and the forecasting capability of the potential changes.