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The appearance of phytoplankton blooms within sea ice cover is of high importance considering the upper ocean primary production that controls the biological pump, with implications for atmospheric CO2 and global climate. Satellite-derived chlorophyll a concentration showed unprecedented phytoplankton blooms in the Maud Rise polynya, Southern Ocean, with chlorophyll a reaching up to 4.67 mg m−3 during 2017. Multi-satellite data indicated that the bloom appeared for the first time since the entire mission records started in 1978. An Argo float located in the polynya edge provided evidence of bloom conditions in austral spring 2017 (chlorophyll a up to 5.47 mg m−3) compared to the preceding years with prevailing low chlorophyll a. The occurrence of bloom was associated with the supply of nutrients into the upper ocean through Ekman upwelling (driven by wind stress curl and cyclonic ocean eddies) and improved light conditions of up to 61.9 einstein m−2 d−1. The net primary production from the Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer chlorophyll-based algorithm showed that the Maud Rise polynya was as productive as the Antarctic coastal polynyas, with carbon fixation rates reaching up to 415.08 mg C m−2 d−1. The study demonstrates how the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean (specifically over the shallow bathymetric region) would likely respond in the future under warming climate conditions and continued melting of Antarctic sea ice.

Appearance of new phytoplankton blooms with in the sea-ice cover has large importance considering the upper ocean primary production that controls the biological pump with the implications for atmospheric CO2 and global climate. Satellite derived chlorophyll-a concentration showed the unprecedented phytoplankton blooms in the Maud Rise polynya, Southern Ocean with chlorophyll-a reached up to 4.67 mg m-3. Multi-satellite data indicated that the bloom appeared for the first time in the entire mission records started since 1978. Argo float located in the polynya edge provided evidence of bloom condition in austral spring 2017 (chlorophyll-a up to 5.47 mg m-3) compared to the preceding years of prevailed low chlorophyll-a. The occurrence of bloom was associated with the supply of nutrients into the upper ocean through the Ekman upwelling (driven by wind stress curl and cyclonic ocean eddies), and improved light condition up to 61.9 Einstein m-2 day-1. The net primary production from Aqua-MODIS chlorophyll-based algorithm showed that the Maud Rise polynya was as productive as the Antarctic coastal polynyas with the carbon fixation rates reached up to 415.08 mg C m-2 day-1. The study demonstrates how the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean (specifically over the shallow bathymetric region) would likely respond in the future under a warming climate condition and continued melting of Antarctic sea-ice since 2016.

Indian Scientific Expeditions to the Southern Ocean (ISESO) have been implemented since 2004 to explore the unknown areas of the Indian Sector of the SO (ISSO) with the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) as the nodal center for the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. The studies conducted in these expeditions have prime importance to understand the role of the SO on regional and global climatic variability. Surveys have been designed to explore the interconnections between physical, chemical and biological components across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Further aims are to understand the ocean-ice-atmosphere interaction, aerosols, other trace gases, thermohaline variations, carbon sequestration and biogeochemical processes. Valuable sediment cores have also been recovered in some critical locations for the reconstruction of the paleo-environmental conditions for selected time slices during the last glacial-interglacial cycles. This special issue presents multidisciplinary data collected during ISESO from 2010 to 2018 that shed light on the present understanding of one of the sparsely explored regions in the SO.