Abstract: Oxygen micro-optodes were used to measure oxygen dynamics directly within the microstructure of sea ice by freezing the sensors into the ice during its formation. The experiment was conducted in a 4 m³ mesocosm filled with artificial seawater and inoculated with a unialgal culture of the common Antarctic ice diatom Fragilariopsis cylindrus (Bacillariophyceae) to a final chlorophyll a (chl a) concentration of 11 µg 1?¹. Ice growth was initiated 7 d after inoculation by reducing the air temperature to -10 plus or minus 2 degree C and terminated 17 d later. The final ice thickness was 27 cm. One optode was frozen into grease ice and 2 others into the skeletal layer of the growing ice sheet. Increasing oxygen concentrations during ice crystal formation at the water surface and the ice-water interface revealed a strong inclusion of oxygen, which was either physically trapped and/or the result of photosynthesising diatoms. The major portion of oxygen was present as gas bubbles due to super-saturation as a result of increasing salinity and oxygen production by diatoms. An increase in salinity due to a concurrent decrease in ice temperatures during subsequent sea ice development reduced the maximum concentration of dissolved oxygen within brine. Thus, dissolved oxygen concentrations decreased over time, whereas gaseous oxygen was released to the atmosphere and seawater. The sensors are a significant advance on more conventional microelectrodes, because the recordings can be temperature and salinity compensated in order to obtain precise measurements of oxygen dynamics with regard to total (dissolved and gaseous) and dissolved oxygen in sea ice. Optodes do not consume oxygen during measuremnet over a long period under extreme conditions, which is another advantage for long-term deployment in the field.

Abstract: Sea-ice meiofauna was studied during various cruises to the Weddell Sea. Foraminifers dominate (75%) the sea-ice community in terms of numerical abundance while turbellarians dominate (45%) in terms of biomass. Distribution of organisms is patchy and varies considerably between cruises but also between sampling sites within one cruise. The bulk of the meiofauna is concentrated in the lowest parts of the sea ice, especially during winter and autumn. However, in porous summer sea ice, sympagic organisms also occur in high densities in upper and intermediate layers of sea ice. Proto- and metazoans associated with Antarctic sea ice include organisms actually living in sea ice, as well as those on the underside of floes and in the underlying water. The sea-ice habitat serves as a feeding ground, as well as an important nursery for juveniles, providing energy-rich food resources. The ice also constitutes a shelter from predators.

Abstract: In January to March 1997, a RV Polarstern cruise that transected the Weddell Sea resulted in samples being taken in thick pack ice in the south-eastern Weddell Sea and then along the marginal ice edge towards the Antarctic Peninsula. Several ice types were thus sampled over a wide geographic area during late summer/early autumn. Common features of the first warm period was the occurrence of surface ponds, and that many floes had quasi-continuous horizontal gaps, underlying a layer of ice and metamorphic snow. With the onset of cold air temperatures in late February the gaps rapidly refroze. The calanoid copepod Stephos longipes occurred in all habitats encountered and showed highest numbers in the surface ice in summer, in the gap water during both seasons and in the refrozen gap water in autumn. Nauplii outnumbered copepodids in the surface ice and refrozen gap water, while in the gap water copepodids, mainly stages CI-CIII in summer and CII-CIV in autumn, comprised about 70% of the total population. The harpacticoid species Drescheriella glacialis did not occur in all habitats and was missing in surface ponds and new ice. Nauplii of D. glacialis were rarely found in gapwater, but predominated in the refrozen gaps.