Mineral phosphorus drives glacier algal blooms on the Greenland Ice Sheet

McCutcheon, Jenine; Lutz, Stefanie; Williamson, Christopher; Cook, Joseph M.; Tedstone, Andrew J.; Vanderstraeten, Aubry; Wilson, Siobhan A.; Stockdale, Anthony; Bonneville, Steeve; Anesio, Alexandre M.; Yallop, Marian L.; McQuaid, James B.; Tranter, Martyn; Benning, Liane G.

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-20627-w

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Mineral phosphorus drives glacier algal blooms on the Greenland Ice Sheet

Authors

McCutcheon, Jenine
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/steffi

Lutz, Stefanie
3.5 Interface Geochemistry, 3.0 Geochemistry, Departments, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum;

Williamson, Christopher
External Organizations;

Cook, Joseph M.
External Organizations;

Tedstone, Andrew J.
External Organizations;

Vanderstraeten, Aubry
External Organizations;

Wilson, Siobhan A.
External Organizations;

Stockdale, Anthony
External Organizations;

Bonneville, Steeve
External Organizations;

Anesio, Alexandre M.
External Organizations;

Yallop, Marian L.
External Organizations;

McQuaid, James B.
External Organizations;

Tranter, Martyn
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/benning

Benning, Liane G.
3.5 Interface Geochemistry, 3.0 Geochemistry, Departments, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum;

External Ressource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (public)

5005078.pdf
(Publisher version), 3MB

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

McCutcheon, J., Lutz, S., Williamson, C., Cook, J. M., Tedstone, A. J., Vanderstraeten, A., Wilson, S. A., Stockdale, A., Bonneville, S., Anesio, A. M., Yallop, M. L., McQuaid, J. B., Tranter, M., Benning, L. G. (2021): Mineral phosphorus drives glacier algal blooms on the Greenland Ice Sheet. - Nature Communications, 12, 570.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20627-w

Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5005078

Abstract

Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is a leading cause of land-ice mass loss and cryosphere-attributed sea level rise. Blooms of pigmented glacier ice algae lower ice albedo and accelerate surface melting in the ice sheet’s southwest sector. Although glacier ice algae cause up to 13% of the surface melting in this region, the controls on bloom development remain poorly understood. Here we show a direct link between mineral phosphorus in surface ice and glacier ice algae biomass through the quantification of solid and fluid phase phosphorus reservoirs in surface habitats across the southwest ablation zone of the ice sheet. We demonstrate that nutrients from mineral dust likely drive glacier ice algal growth, and thereby identify mineral dust as a secondary control on ice sheet melting.