In dives to the seafloor, scientists have noticed big differences in only a few years.

“Surprisingly big changes in the coastal seafloor communities have occurred in only a few years,” Patrick Degerman of Finland wrote in a dispatch from the research team’s camp on the ice shelf near New Harbour in the Ross Sea.

“Two days ago, [two of the researchers] did the first dive of the year under the ice in crystal clear water, and much to everyone’s surprise, the animal community on the seafloor had changed dramatically since the last visit in 2009,” he wrote in the first week of November on the expedition’s Facebook page, “Science Under the Ice.”

Source: Sea life beneath Antarctic ice shelf is changing, and warming may be why