The news of looming climate change is often dire. Accounts of the impact on wildlife range from the sharp decline in the polar bear population to threats
to emperor penguin colonies. But Maria Vernet,
a research biologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, was part of a scientific team that found climate change may be precipitating new, rich areas of marine life growth.
The team, which also included researchers from the San Diego Supercomputer Center, sampled icebergs in the remote Weddell Sea, an arm of the Southern Atlantic Ocean. They found that free-drifting icebergs, split off from Antarctic ice shelves as a result of global climate change, are creating “hotspots” for ocean life. These floating ice islands—some as large
as a dozen miles long and more than 120 feet high—are hosting robust communities of phytoplankton, krill, fish and seabirds. The icebergs, called “moving estuaries” by one researcher, release key terrestrial nutrients far out
to sea. This produces a “halo effect” with increases in sea life more than two miles around the icebergs. 
Contributors to Making Waves: Mario Aguilera, '89, Rex Graham, Raymond Hardie, Robert Monroe, Neda Oreizy, '08, Doug Ramsey
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