Description: The Arctic Ocean plays a key role in regulating the global climate, while being highly sensitive to climate change. Temperature in the Arctic increases faster than the global average, causing a loss of multiyear sea-ice and affecting marine ecosystem structure and functioning. As a result, Arctic primary production and biogeochemical cycling are changing. Here, we investigated inter-annual changes in the concentrations of particulate and dissolved organic carbon (POC, DOC) together with biological drivers, such as phyto- and bacterioplankton abundance in the Fram Strait, the Atlantic gateway to the Central Arctic Ocean. Data have been collected in summer at the Long-Term Ecological Research observatory HAUSGARTEN during eight cruises from 2009 to 2017. Our results suggest that the dynamic physical system of the Fram Strait induces strong heterogeneity of the ecosystem that displays considerable intra-seasonal as well as inter-annual variability. Over the observational period, DOC concentrations were significantly negatively related to temperature and salinity, suggesting that outflow of Central Arctic waters carrying a high DOC load is the main control of DOC concentration in this region. POC concentration was not linked to temperature or salinity but tightly related to phytoplankton biomass as estimated from chlorophyll-a concentrations (Chl-a). For the years 2009–2017, no temporal trends in the depth-integrated (0–100 m) amounts of DOC and Chl-a were observed. In contrast, depth-integrated (0–100 m) amounts of POC, as well as the ratio [POC]:[TOC], decreased significantly over time. This suggests a higher partitioning of organic carbon into the dissolved phase. Potential causes and consequences of the observed changes in organic carbon stocks for food-web structure and CO2 sequestration are discussed.

Description: Satellite‐derived data suggest an increase in annual primary production following the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. The scarcity of field data to corroborate this enhanced algal production incited a collaborative project combining six annual cycles of sequential sediment trap measurements obtained over a 17‐year period in the Eurasian Arctic Ocean. Here we present microalgal fluxes measured at ~200 m to reflect the bulk of algal carbon production. Ice algae contributed to a large proportion of the microalgal carbon export before complete ice melt and possible detection of their production by satellites. In the northern Laptev Sea, annual microalgal carbon fluxes were lower during the 2007 minimum ice extent than in 2006. In 2012, early snowmelt led to early microalgal carbon flux in the Nansen Basin. Hence, a change in the timing of snowmelt and ice algae release may affect productivity and export over the Arctic basins.

Description: Pelagic amphipods represent a large fraction of organisms entering sediment traps as so-called “swimmers.” These swimmers were sampled with sediment traps (∼200– 300 m water depth) with two mooring arrays deployed at two different positions in the Long-Term Ecological Research observatory HAUSGARTEN in the northeastern Fram Strait. This sampling allowed us to investigate amphipod year-round abundances and inter-annual trends from 2000 onward. In this study, newly analyzed data from a 3-years period (August 2011–June 2014) are presented, extending this long-term investigation. In our results, the species Themisto abyssorum, T. libellula, and T. compressa dominated the swimmer biomass, corroborating previous studies. The observed increase of amphipod abundances persisted in all three species, additionally implying that Themisto compressa maintained its population off Svalbard, which appeared for the first time here after a warm anomaly in 2004–2007. This study provides evidence for changes in amphipod community patterns that can mainly be attributed to growing abundances of T. compressa. Similarly, another hyperiid, Lanceola clausii, also increased in abundance over the investigated period. For T. libellula, almost no juvenile individuals were recorded in the sampling period 2013/14, even though juveniles of this species were common in earlier records. The three more years of observations clearly suggest that recently documented environmental shifts persist in the eastern Fram Strait. They also highlight the merit of using sediment trap time series to obtain year-round data sets needed to reveal processes and range shift dynamics in the pelagic system on a long-term basis.

Description: The Weddell Gyre (WG) is one of the main oceanographic features of the Southern Ocean south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current which plays an influential role in global ocean circulation as well as gas exchange with the atmosphere. We review the state‐of‐the art knowledge concerning the WG from an interdisciplinary perspective, uncovering critical aspects needed to understand this system's role in shaping the future evolution of oceanic heat and carbon uptake over the next decades. The main limitations in our knowledge are related to the conditions in this extreme and remote environment, where the polar night, very low air temperatures and presence of sea ice year‐round hamper field and remotely sensed measurements. We highlight the importance of winter and under‐ice conditions in the southern WG, the role that new technology will play to overcome present‐day sampling limitations, the importance of the WG connectivity to the low‐latitude oceans and atmosphere, and the expected intensification of the WG circulation as the westerly winds intensify. Greater international cooperation is needed to define key sampling locations that can be visited by any research vessel in the region. Existing transects sampled since the 1980s along the Prime Meridian and along an East‐West section at ~62°S should be maintained with regularity to provide answers to the relevant questions. This approach will provide long‐term data to determine trends and will improve representation of processes for regional, Antarctic‐wide and global modeling efforts – thereby enhancing predictions of the WG in global ocean circulation and climate.

Description: Phytoplankton species composition and the associated community size structure are expected to change with a warming and freshening of the Arctic Ocean. Cell size controls many physiological (bottom-up) processes, such as nutrient uptake, photosynthesis and growth, thereby affecting the functioning of the planktonic ecosystem as a whole. Furthermore, predator-prey interaction (top-down control) is highly size dependent. The size structure of the phytoplankton community in the Fram Strait has been analysed, based on observations of cell abundance and size. Non- parametric size spectra are obtained from microscopic observations, using a statistical approach that also provides respective confidence intervals. A bootstrap approach is applied, with cell counts and size measurements being resampled respectively. Kernel density estimates (KDE) are derived for all resampled data sets. The collection of KDEs yield robust continuous descriptions of cell density versus cell size together with their confidence limits. With this approach we resolve detailed changes in community size structure that shall be used to improve and constrain results of a size-based plankton ecosystem model. Size dependencies of bottom-up and top-down effects on biogeochemical mass flux will be investigated. The calibrated model can then be applied for deriving reliable projections of how the planktonic ecosystem in the Arctic may be affected by climate change.

Description: The succession of phytoplankton in the Fram Strait was investigated at the AWI LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) observatory HAUSGARTEN at a fixed station (HG-IV; ~ 79°N , 4° E) for the first time. For this purpose, a moored automated sampling system ( at ~25 m water depth) was collecting samples every other week except during winter month from August 15 2017 to July 8 2018. Phytoplankton was identified, counted, and the size was measured, in a total of 17 samples. Growth started in the middle of May with diatoms of the genus Chaetoceros and Thalassiosira directly followed by the haptophyte Phaeocystis during June. The group of dinoflagellates showed two growth phases; one during August to mid-September and another one during May. Cryptophytes exhibited their growth phase in September, while Dictyocha speculum dominated in November. Rhizosolenia spp. and Pseudo-nitzschia spp. were more frequent during late summer. The common bloom forming diatoms Chaetoceros spp. and Thalassiosira spp. as well as the haptophyte Phaeocystis sp. were the most abundant species predominating the cell counts and also made up the majority of the phytoplankton carbon (PPC) in the course of that year in eastern Fram Strait.