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Arctic Springs Eternal

Researchers got a breathtaking view from the bow of icebreaker Healy during the 2014 Arctic Spring expedition to the Chuchki Sea. Though the sun never fully set during the expedition, twilight created colorful hues on the fields of sea ice. One of the cruise’s main objectives was to discover why and how phytoplankton bloom under sea ice, a relatively unstudied phenomenon in the Arctic. Part of that mission was to find first-year ice, or ice that is transparent enough to let sunshine through for algae to bloom. In a region with 50 percent less sea ice than in 1980, this proved easier than usual.(Photo by Amanda Kowalski, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)