October 18, 2021 - Phytoplankton Bloom off Victoria Island, Canada
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Turquoise swirls colored the waters off of northern Canada’s
ice-covered Victoria Island in mid-October 2021. The Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra
satellite acquired a true-color image of the scene on October 14.
The gorgeous colors are created by a bloom of phytoplankton in the cool
Arctic waters. Phytoplankton are tiny, plant-like organisms that often
float near the ocean surface and turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into
sugars and oxygen. In turn, they become food for the grazing
zooplankton, shellfish, and finfish of the sea. The also play an
important but not fully understood role in the global carbon cycle,
taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sinking it to the
bottom of the ocean.
While it is impossible to know for sure which species of phytoplankton
float in any bloom without taking samples, the milky tones of this
milky blue bloom suggest the presence of a type of phytoplankton known
as coccolithophores. These organisms possess calcium carbonate plates
that appear chalky white when amassed in great numbers, and large
colonies typically appear milky blue from space.
Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 10/14/2021
Resolutions: 1km (253.4 KB), 500m (771.7 KB), 250m (2 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-10-18
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