The milky green and blue phytoplankton developed where warmer, saltier coastal waters from the subtropics meet colder, fresher waters flowing from the south.
This image of the summer phytoplankton bloom in the Barents Sea off the northwesternmost corner of Russia was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on August 19, 2009. The milky-blue color that dominates the bloom suggests that it contains large numbers of phytoplankton called coccolithophores.