As Beijing prepared to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, the city of Qingdao, roughly 550 kilometers (340 miles) to the southeast, prepared its coastal waters for the games’ sailing competitions. With the games looming just weeks away, Chinese officials and residents of Qingdao (also known as Tsingtao) struggled with a stubborn adversary: algae.
Published Jul 9, 2008
Satellites can spot some blooms earlier, resulting in significant savings on health care, lost work hours, and other economic costs.
Published Aug 4, 2020
An early summer algae bloom in Florida’s Lake Okeechobee has been blamed for affecting water quality downstream all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
Published Jul 6, 2016
Swirling patterns in Spencer Gulf require a bit of detective work.
Published Nov 23, 2016
The waters off of Australia hosted an apparent bloom of Trichodesmium, an ancient, important, and ubiquitous type of microscopic sea life.
Published Oct 7, 2017
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites helped scientists identify this large algal bloom off the eastern coast of Tasmania. Large blooms have not been detected in the Tasman Sea in the past, and scientists from CSIRO Marine Research, the largest marine research organization in Australia, believe this one resulted from the natural upwelling of nutrients along the island’s coast. The bloom is made up of coccolithophores, and is not believed to be harmful to the coastal ecosystem.
Published Oct 28, 2004
Phytoplankton explosions off the east and west coasts of the United States have both benign and harmful impacts.
Published Aug 9, 2015
Algae covers much of Lake Erie’s western basin in these images, taken in early October 2011, when one the the largest blooms in recent decades spread across the lake.
Published Oct 14, 2011
In polar environments, tiny algae and other plant-like organisms that are the foundation of the ocean food web grow not just in the open ocean, but also within brine-filled pores and cracks in the sea ice. In the winter, sea ice insulates the water below, keeping it above freezing. Algae growing on the bottom of the ice can grow into long filaments that trail into the water. As the ice melts, and currents and tides jostle and crush the sea ice into slush and small pieces, the algae are released into the surface water. Blooms of algae and phytoplankton often occur along the ice edge.
Published Mar 5, 2008
Microcystis blooms have become a regular occurrence on the lake. In 2014, the bloom was especially intense around the water intake for Toledo, Ohio, causing managers to warn residents not to consume public drinking water for several days.
Published Aug 5, 2014Image of the Day Life Water Human Presence Remote Sensing Water Color
Changing conditions in the waters near Alaska promotes late summer phytoplankton growth.
Published Sep 19, 2014
Harmless phytoplankton put on a stunning display, while another less-visible species wreaked havoc on salmon farms.
Published Jun 6, 2019
Phytoplankton and blue-green algae blooms off of Scandinavia seem to be particularly intense this summer.
Published Jul 23, 2018
