Phytoplankton Blooms in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Credit: Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
Satellite: OrbView-2
Sensor: SeaWiFS
Image Date: 05-23-2001
Copyright: All SeaWiFS images are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with Orbimage (www.orbimage.com/).
VE Record ID: 8079
Description: This SeaWiFS image captured on May 23, 2001 shows a sunny day in the United Kingdom and Ireland. There are several large, bright blooms that extend from the Bay of Biscay, across the Celtic Sea, and up around the western side of Ireland. The different patches exhibit significant color variations. On the North Sea side, the phytoplankton patches look less milky and somewhat greener. Brownish suspended sediment flows from the mouth of the Humber estuary.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?8079
Phytoplankton bloom in North Sea and Baltic Sea
Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
Satellite: Terra
Sensor: MODIS
Image Date: 07-05-2001
VE Record ID: 8779
Description: This MODIS true-color image shows the blues and greens of a phytoplankton bloom occurring in the North Sea, west of Denmark, the country on the peninsula in the center. The bright blue color may indicate a coccolithophore bloom. Groningen is visible on this image.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?8779
Smoke and Haze over Bo Hai, China
Credit: Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
Satellite: Terra
Sensor: MODIS
Image Date: 07-12-2001
VE Record ID: 8530
Description:
NASA's Terra satellite observed a thick plume of aerosol pollution (greyish pixels) over eastern China, extending eastward over the Bo Hai Bay and Korea Bay. The source of the haze is not apparent in this scene. This true-color image of eastern China was acquired July 12, 2001, by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).
The city of Tianjin can be seen as the brownish pixels just west of the Bo Hai Bay. China's capital city of Beijing is located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Tianjin. Beijing was selected to be the site of the 2008 Olympic games.
There appears to be a phytoplankton bloom (greenish pixels) off the northern shore of Bo Hai Bay. The brownish pixels in the northeastern corner of the bay, and all along the western shore, are sediment run-off from the land.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?8530
Overview of Mesopotamia
Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA/GSFC
Satellite: Terra
Sensor: MODIS
Image Date: 08-27-2001
VE Record ID: 9823
Description:
Running through the deserts of Iraq (image center) are the Tigris (right) and Euphrates (left) Rivers. The land between the confluence of the two rivers is the culturally, historically, and ecologically significant Mesopotamian Fertile Crescent, situated just southeast of center in this true-color image from NASA's Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), acquired on August 29, 2001. Recent reports estimate that within the past two decades, over 85 percent of the wetlands making up the Fertile Crescent have disappeared due to demand for irrigation in the region.
In the 250-m (full resolution) image, several remarkable features can be seen. Desert sands and sediments are pouring into the Persian Gulf, bottom right, bringing nutrients that have supported a phytoplankton bloom that colors the waters of the Gulf bright blue and green. In the upper right, beyond the mountainous terrain of northern Iran, the Caspian Sea is banked in by clouds. In the lower left of the image, the reddish-orange sands of Saudi Arabia's An Nafud desert stretch eastward and become the Ad Dahna', a narrow band of sand mountains also called the River of Sand.
Several manmade features are also apparent. At Iraq's southeastern border with Kuwait, burning oil smoke is visible. Crisscrossing the deserts of southern Iraq and Saudi Arabia are white lines that reveal the location of oil pipelines. The unusual polygonal shapes that appear to the east of the Ad Dahna' are areas that are protected from grazing.
MODIS is one of five sensors flying aboard NASA's Terra satellite.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?9823
SeaWiFS: Baltic Sea Bloom
Credit: Credit line for all images: Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
Satellite: OrbView-2
Sensor: SeaWiFS
Image Date: 07-24-2001
Copyright: All SeaWiFS images are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with Orbimage (www.orbimage.com/).
VE Record ID: 8563
Description: In this image captured on July 24, 2001, the phytoplankton bloom in the Baltic Sea continues to intensify. The bloom looks similar to one viewed in August 1999, which was identified as cyanobacteria.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?8563
Phytoplankton in the Gulf of California
Credit: Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
note: All SeaWiFS images and data are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with ORBIMAGE
Satellite: OrbView-2
Sensor: SeaWiFS
Image Date: 03-22-2001
VE Record ID: 7638
Description: The Gulf of California appears to be in full bloom in this Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) image acquired on March 22, 2001. The distribution of phytoplankton (greenish pixels) in the gulf reveals the turbulent nature of the currents there, particularly in the central and southern portions of this subtropical arm of the Pacific Ocean.
The Gulf of California is framed by Mexico's Baja peninsula on the left and that country's province of Sonora on the right. Phytoplankton blooms are also visible off the west coast of Baja in this scene. The white pixels are clouds.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?7638
Toxic Bloom off the Coast of Norway
Credit: Image provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE. Note: All SeaWiFS images and data presented or referred to in this email message are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with ORBIMAGE.
Satellite: OrbView-2
Sensor: SeaWiFS
Image Date: 03-19-2001
VE Record ID: 7647
Description: As a part of the European Union's ongoing research project entitled LIFECO (Linking hydrographic Frontal activity to ECOsystem dynamics), scientists are using real-time imagery from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) to monitor the development of the spring phytoplankton bloom in the North Sea and Skagerrak. These data are used in conjunction with ship-based measurements of the annual bloom.
In the course of monitoring the spring bloom of diatoms in the region, scientists detected a second, harmful algal bloom (called Chattonella) off the southern coast of Norway on March 19, 2001. This harmful algal bloom appears to have been carried by currents westward from the Swedish coast of the Kattegat to the Norwegian coast where it has already killed more than 1,000 tons of salmon in fish farms during the past week. Norway is the world's top producer of Atlantic salmon, yielding about 400,000 tons per year.
SeaWiFS, which flies aboard the OrbView-2 satellite, precisely measures ocean color (even variations of color so slight our eyes cannot perceive the difference), which enables scientist to accurately estimate the concentrations of sediments, organic materials, or even phytoplankton at the surface. In the latter case, to be more precise, SeaWiFS measures the concentration of chlorophyll-a, the green pigment found in phytoplankton.
In the false-color image above, red pixels represent the areas with the greatest concentrations of chlorophyll-a (more than 10 milligrams per cubic meter), yellows show high concentrations (about 3 mg/m3), greens and turquoise pixels show intermediate values (0.3 to 1 mg/m3), and blues and purples show where there is little or no abundance of chlorophyll-a. Note the very high values along the southern coasts of Sweden and Norway, extending westward into the North Sea.
It should also be noted that while SeaWiFS can accurately measure chlorophyll-a concentrations, it cannot yet be used to distinguish between species of phytoplankton. So, without the aid of surface-based measurements, it is not possible to pinpoint which parts of the bloom in this image are the harmful algal bloom and which are the benign bloom of diatoms.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?7647
Phytoplankton and sediments in Gulf of Mexico
Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
Satellite: Terra
Sensor: MODIS
Image Date: 01-15-2002
VE Record ID: 11461
Description: Affected both by terrestrial factors like agriculture, deforestation, and erosion, and by marine factors like salinity levels, ocean temperature and water pollution, coastal environments are the dynamic interface between land and sea. In this MODIS image from January 15, 2002, the Gulf of Mexico is awash in a mixture of phytoplankton and sediment. Tan-colored sediment is flowing out into the Gulf from the Mississippi River, whose floodplain cuts a pale, wide swath to the right of center in the image, and also from numerous smaller rivers along the Louisiana coast (center).
Mixing with the sediment are the multi-colored blue and green swirls that reveal the presence of large populations of marine plants called phytoplankton. Phytoplankton populations bloom and then fade, and these cycles affect fish and mammals-including humans-higher up the food chain. Certain phytoplankton are toxic to both fish and humans, and coastal health departments must monitor ecosystems carefully, often restricting fishing or harvesting of shellfish until the blooms have subsided.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?11461
Baltic Sea
Credit: Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
Satellite: OrbView-2
Sensor: SeaWiFS
Image Date: 05-20-1999
Copyright: All SeaWiFS images are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with Orbimage (www.orbimage.com/).
VE Record ID: 4772
Description: Phytoplankton blooms are quite visible in this SeaWiFS view of the Baltic Sea.
Visible Earth: visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?4772