Scientists have determined why the Arctic sea ice is green

The researchers found that the Arctic ice was very thin and this allowed the algae to grow under it

Previously, the ice thickness did not allow the microscopic algae or phytoplankton to sunlight.

An international team found that in the Arctic now the record low level of sea ice, causing it to become darker, so instead of reflect sunlight, it absorbs, and now the conditions under the ice promote the growth of phytoplankton.

“The reduction per meter of thickness of sea ice in the Arctic over the past 30 years has drastically changed the ecology in that area. We have moved from a state in which there was no way for flowering of plankton, to the fact that huge areas in the Arctic have become prone to these types of growth,” says one of the scientists, Chris Horvath from Harvard University.

Using mathematical modeling, scientists have built a model of changes in ice conditions from 1986 to 2015, which showed that, in addition to reducing the thickness of the ice, increasing the number of gullies in it. 20 years ago, only 3 or 4 percent of Arctic sea ice was thin enough for the development of phytoplankton. Now this ice in the region of about 30 percent.

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