Phytoplankton blooms over Arctic Ocean continental shelves are thought to be restricted to waters free of sea ice. Here, we document a massive phytoplankton bloom beneath fully consolidated pack ice far from the ice edge in the Chukchi Sea, where light transmission has increased in recent decades because of thinning ice cover and proliferation of melt ponds. The bloom was characterized by high diatom biomass and rates of growth and primary production. Evidence suggests that under-ice phytoplankton blooms may be more widespread over nutrient-rich Arctic continental shelves and that satellite-based estimates of annual primary production in these waters may be underestimated by up to 10-fold.

The Canadian Beaufort Sea has been categorized as an oligotrophic system with the potential for enhanced production due to a nutrient‐rich intermediate layer of Pacific‐origin waters. Using under‐ice hydrographic data collected near the ice‐edge of a shallow Arctic bay, we documented an ice‐edge upwelling event that brought nutrient‐rich waters to the surface during June 2008. The event resulted in a 3‐week long phytoplankton bloom that produced an estimated 31 g C m−2 of new production. This value was approximately twice that of previous estimates for annual production in the region, demonstrating the importance of ice‐edge upwelling to the local marine ecosystem. Under‐ice primary production estimates of up to 0.31 g C m−2 d−1 showed that this production was not negligible, contributing up to 22% of the daily averaged production of the ice‐edge bloom. It is suggested that under‐ice blooms are a widespread yet under‐documented phenomenon in polar regions, which could increase in importance with the Arctic's thinning ice cover and subsequent increase in transmitted irradiance to the under‐ice environment.

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