Summary
Sea ice is an important structuring element of Antarctic marine ecosystems and provides a vast habitat for ice-associated algae forming communities in different horizons of the ice floes. Sea ice algae contribute significantly to overall primary production in ice-covered waters of the Southern Ocean. During spring and summer when the ice melts phytoplankton blooms develop at retreating ice-edges. It has been hypothesized that increased stratification, seeding of the water column by ice algae and the release of iron from snow accumulated on the ice cover facilitate these blooms. In this poster we present a relatively simple model on the large-scale distribution of ice algae off East Antarctica (30-160„a East). The model is based on the assumption that sea-ice algae are primarily light limited. We use ice drift and solar irradiance data to estimate the cumulative light exposure of ice floes, thus providing an indicator of potential ice algal development. The model outputs are compared to the occurrence of ice-edge blooms and we explore future developments of the model informed by ice-thickness and snow-thickness distribution.