Icebergs released into Antarctic waters by global warming are hotspots for wildlife, researchers have found.

The break-up of Antarctic ice shelves has increased dramatically the number of icebergs and they have proved an unexpectedly rich habitat.

Nutrients released into the water by the melting ice promote the growth of phytoplankton, which attract krill, which are then preyed on by bigger animals such as whales.

Sea areas that would normally be barren – up to two miles (3km) from the icebergs – have become rich in animal life, including a variety of fish.

Among the birds observed by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, in the US, were Cape petrels and Antarctic fulmars. Penguins, whales and seals are attracted by the krill and fish.

Almost 1,000 icebergs were counted in 4,300 sq miles (11,000 sq km) of the Weddell Sea, and scientists calculated that overall they had increased the “biological productivity” in nearly 40 per cent of the sea.

Life thrives in such quantities around the icebergs studied that the researchers describe them as free-floating estuaries.

“We envision free-drifting icebergs in the Weddell Sea as hotspots of continual micro-nutrient release that sustain the accompanying attached and pelagic communities,” they say in their report, published in the journal Science.”

The researchers suggest that the eruption of life around the icebergs could be helping to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Some of the greenhouse gas is absorbed by the ocean and, in turn, by animal life which, when it dies, can sink to the seabed where the carbon is trapped.

Because more animal life is being created in the region there is more that can sink to the sea floor and therefore increase the quantity of carbon removed from the atmosphere.

“Free-drifting icebergs could serve as areas of increased production and sequestration of organic carbon to the deep sea, a process unaccounted-for in current global carbon budgets,” they say.

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