Ancient Arctic Algae Record Climate Change in "Tree Rings"

Coralline algae show how Arctic sea ice has responded to climate swings on an annual scale for the past 650 years
By Becky Oskin and LiveScience

Thick, reddish crusts of the Arctic seafloor algae Clathromorphum compactum, which can live for hundreds of years. Image: Nick Caloyianus

Bright pink algae that light up the Arctic seafloor like Las Vegas neon are also guides to hundreds of years of climate history, a new study shows. From the medieval chill called the Little Ice Age to the onset of glo al warming in the !"##s, the coralline algae show how Arctic sea ice has responded to climate swings for the past $%# years. The findings were pu lished today &'ov. !"( in the )ournal *roceedings of the 'ational Academy of +ciences.

For the first time, researchers now have ancient sea ice information on a yearly scale, said lead study author ,ochen -alfar, a paleoclimatologist at the .niversity of Toronto in /ississauga, 0anada. 1This is important for understanding the rapid, short2term changes that are currently ongoing with respect to sea ice decline,1 -alfar said in an email interview. Undersea 'tree rings' The species are called coralline algae ecause they deposit coral2 like crusts of the mineral calcite on underwater rocks, coating the rocks with colorful pink splotches. &-owever, algae are plants and coral are animals.( Because the algae go dormant in the winter, when sea ice locks incoming sunlight, the calcite layers develop visi le ands that are similar to tree rings, -alfar said. 3uring the Little Ice Age, when volcanoes and sun cycle variations caused a glo al cooling from the !4##s to the !"##s, the coral5s underwater 1tree rings1 narrowed, suggesting e6tensive sea ice cover and short summers. +tarting in !"%# 7 the onset of the Industrial 8evolution 7 the algae5s growth rings dou led in thickness, in sync with the decline in the e6tent of Arctic sea ice. 1The steepness of the decline is unprecedented in the entire record,1 -alfar said. The algae records also reveal fre9uent year2to2year variations in the amount of sea ice, as satellites have seen in the past decade, when the Arctic sea ice has seesawed etween relative highs and e6treme lows. 0ollecting more algae crusts could help fill a gap etween climate records from sediment and ice cores, which may only provide a record for every !## years, and satellite tracking, which goes ack for only a few decades, -alfar said. 1/odels right now differ tremendously in predicting when an ice2 free summer Arctic will occur,1 -alfar said. 1A ig pro lem in these models is the lack of long2term data from the past that can

e used as input. :ith our coralline algal sea ice record, we might e a le to etter constrain model prediction.1 Old and cold To collect the crystalline crusts, divers chiseled off calcite shards from underwater rocks in the La rador +ea offshore of ;ingitok Island and in the Arctic <cean near 'unavut, 0anada. The oldest algae crusts contained $=$ years of layers, confirmed y car on dating, the researchers said. The algae, called Clathromorphum compactum, owes its long lifespan to its thick calcite crust and a different protective layer, called eitihallium, that keeps gra>ing animals from chomping too much of the algal surface, -alfar said. :hile $=$ years won5t put the algae near the record for the world5s oldest plant &which is held y trees such as %,###2year2old ristlecone pines(, the discovery does add to the list of long2lived, cold2loving species. +ponges in Antarctica may live for up to !#,### years, and mollusks collected offshore of Iceland can live for more than %## years. The algae5s lifespan is theoretically unlimited, -alfar said. 1/uch longer records are possi le, and in fact, during an e6pedition this past summer, our group sampled some specimens off La rador that, ased on their thickness are well over !,### years old &in2 depth analysis and dating pending(,1 -alfar told Live+cience.