IMAS Metadata Catalogue
Phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean
The Southern Ocean spring phytoplankton bloom impacts regional food webs and the marine carbon cycle, but we do not fully understand which drivers – environmental, ecological, or biological – control the timing or productivity of the spring bloom. Nutrients, and particularly iron, are likely replete in the austral winter, but the importance of underwater light availability and grazing pressure are topics of ongoing discussion. Furthermore, in the extreme polar winter, phytoplankton physiology may impart additional constraints on phytoplankton variability when ocean mixing decreases.
Of particular interest is the impact of highly variable sea ice on the Southern Ocean environment, where over the last decade the Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) has recorded record highs and lows. The anomalous low in 2023 suggested a new reduced sea-ice state, with unknown impacts on phytoplankton bloom dynamics, including bloom phenology and magnitude. Such changes in SIE will alter the physical environment, and in turn will have profound implications for the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Phytoplankton are especially sensitive to such changes in the physical environment, but understanding and predicting future changes resulting from a reduced sea-ice state remains challenging.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Publication)
- 2025-08-28T00:00:00
Identifier
- Title
- Information and documentation - Digital object identifier system
- Citation identifier
- ISO 26324:2012
- Code
- 10.25959/45Z8-1D81
- Codespace
- doi.org
- Description
- Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Principal investigator
Collaborator
Collaborator
Collaborator
- Credit
- This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative, Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS) (Project Number SR200100008).
- Status
- Completed
Point of contact
- Topic category
-
- Oceans
Extent
))
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2022-08-31 2025-01-01
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
- Keywords (Theme)
-
- Antarctic
- Southern Ocean
- phytoplankton
- phytoplankton blooms
- phytoplankton dynamics
- food webs
- marine carbon cycle
- climate change
- Global Change Master Directory Earth Science Keywords, Version 8.5
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC): Fields of Research
-
- Community Ecology
- Environmental Monitoring
- Biological Oceanography
- Physical Oceanography
Resource constraints
- Linkage
-
https://licensebuttons.net/l/by/4.0/88x31.png
License Graphic
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Website
-
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License Text
- Other constraints
- Cite data as: Schlosser, T., Strutton, P., Baker, K., & Boyd, P. (2025). Phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean [Data set]. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. https://doi.org/10.25959/45Z8-1D81
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Supplemental Information
- Latitudinal trends in drivers of the Southern Ocean spring bloom onset
Content Information
- Content type
- Physical measurement
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
- NetCDF, M-files
- OnLine resource
-
Data for: Latitudinal trends in drivers of the Southern Ocean spring bloom onset
Data analysis and figure plotting files for Journal of Geophysical Research (2025) publication
- OnLine resource
-
Data for: Phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean in high vs. low sea ice years
Processing files and relevant datasets for Elementa (2025) publication
- OnLine resource
- Browse and download data from IMAS stored copy
- OnLine resource
- Related source code: General Ocean Turbulence Model (GOTM)
- OnLine resource
-
Associated publication
Schlosser, T. L., Strutton, P. G., Baker, K., & Boyd, P. W. (2025). Latitudinal trends in drivers of the Southern Ocean spring bloom onset. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 130, e2024JC021099. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JC021099
- OnLine resource
-
Associated publication
Schlosser T. L., Strutton, P.G. (2025). Phytoplankton blooms in the new Southern Ocean sea-ice regime. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 13 (1): 00055. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2024.00055
Resource lineage
- Statement
- The project primarily employs Argo observations, accessed via the OneArgo-Mat toolbox (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6588042). The ERA5 reanalysis data this study employed can be accessed from the Copernicus data store (Hersbach, H. et al., 2018). Frontal locations were determined using the data available at E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information (https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00016, https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00021). Time-averaged front locations were provided by Park & Isabelle (2019) at https://doi.org/10.17882/59800. We complement the Argo observations with numerical model simulations using GOTM, which is published on GitHub: https://github.com/gotm-model/ (GOTM version 6). The codes to reproduce the data analysis and run GOTM can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10807003. Additional data processing methods are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13363768.
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
- urn:uuid/9af1bf2e-a981-4d56-af9c-f29af82c4af6
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Name
- IMAS Dataset level record
- Metadata linkage
-
https://metadata.imas.utas.edu.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/9af1bf2e-a981-4d56-af9c-f29af82c4af6
Point of truth URL of this metadata record
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-07-30T00:00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2026-04-27T18:39:56
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-3:2018
Overviews
Spatial extent
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