Ice Oceans
The realm of Ice Oceans occurs at both poles. Not much is known about the marine life that exists beneath polar ice, a habitat that may be disappearing faster than we think. At the ocean surface, seawater solidifies between -1.5 and -2.0 degrees C creating new transient solid habitats at each pole. Climate change appears to be raising temperatures globally and altering the sites and nature of polar life for marine species and humans. Historically such changes seem to occur faster than the movements of continents, so they provide interesting case studies in evolution, and the two poles provide an interesting contrast.
Two CoML field projects (one at each pole) are established for this realm:
Arctic: ArcOD
An international collaborative effort to inventory biodiversity in the Arctic sea ice, water column and sea floor from the shallow shelves to the deep basins.
Antarctic: CAML
An international collaborative effort to survey the cold Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica in an attempt to understand the biological diversity of this unique and poorly understood environment.
