Phytoplankton are usually most abundant in this area when spring melting and runoff freshen the water and add nutrients just as sunlight is increasing.
Published May 8, 2018
The northern and western highlands of Scotland were still winter-brown and even dusted with snow in places, but the waters of the North Sea were blooming with phytoplankton on May 8, 2008, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the region and captured this image. The tiny, plant-like organisms swirled in the waters off the country’s east coast, coloring the shallow coastal waters shades of bright blue and green.
Published May 13, 2008
MODIS caught a clear view of an explosion of phytoplankton—a rare treat since the Barents Sea is cloud-covered roughly 80 percent of the summer.
Published Aug 18, 2011
Satellite imagers captured the transition from one blooming phytoplankton genus to another in the Barents Sea in the summer of 2014.
Published Aug 10, 2014
July 2019 brought the latest display of a phytoplankton bloom that occurs every year in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Published Jul 15, 2019
Early summer water conditions provide fertile territory for phytoplankton blooms.
Published Jul 5, 2015
The waters off of Newfoundland were colored by coccolithophore blooms for two months.
Published Sep 21, 2020
At the intersection of two ocean current systems off of Argentina, phytoplankton growth explodes in a spring 2011 bloom.
Published Nov 16, 2011
The brilliant shades of blue and green that fill the waters near the Norwegian shore in this photo-like image are likely phytoplankton.
Published Aug 6, 2009
The milky green and blue phytoplankton developed where warmer, saltier coastal waters from the subtropics meet colder, fresher waters flowing from the south.
Published Dec 23, 2018
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