This session will explore the sensitivity of polar coastal ecosystems to changes in nutrient balance—including the relative availability of nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, and iron— in response to a changing cryosphere. The session will deepen understanding of the link between nutrient delivery and transformation from land, changing nutrient balance in coastal waters, and responses in ecosystems and their functions across the freshwater-marine interface – including pelagic and benthic communities. We emphasize the critical role of biogeochemical processes acting along the land-to-sea nutrient pathway and the urgent need to constrain their sensitivities across contemporary natural environmental gradients acting as future climate analogues (e.g., temperature, salinity, light, freshwater input). We encourage comparative research in Arctic and Antarctic systems to provide insight into how contrasting physical settings and biological communities respond to similar climate drivers such as glacial melt, permafrost thaw, and shifting stratification.

• Coastal and Estuarine Biology and Biogeochemistry -
• High Latitude Environments -