Development of hyperspectral and RGB imaging systems for under-ice mapping of fine scale sea-ice biophysical properties

Polar sea ice is one of the largest biomes on Earth covering up to 6.1% of the area of the global ocean. Within this biome, sea-ice algae constitute a large, yet poorly quantified fraction of biomass contributing to polar marine productivity and large-scale biogeochemical cycles. Ice algae support the foundation of polar marine food webs by sustaining pelagic fauna, seeding planktonic blooms, and exporting organic material to the benthos. Advancing the capability to capture spatio-temporal dynamics of ice algae and its drivers is highly desirable. Modern understanding of ecology advocates that the analyses of large-scale ecological patterns require the acknowledgment and integration of small-scale processes and that complex interactions occur at multiple scales. In sea ice, traditional sampling methods have struggled to capture and quantify patterns in algal community distributions due to a lack of methods that do not destroy the community and address microscale patterns (