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December 11, 2020 - Phytoplankton Bloom off Chatham Island
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Swirls of milky blue stretched across the South Pacific island off of the Chatham Islands in early December 2020. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of the scene on December 2.
The beautiful colors come from a large bloom of single-celled, plant-like organisms called phytoplankton. These microscopic organisms live in these waters year-round in small numbers. When presented with the right amount of nutrients, light, and water temperature, phytoplankton begin to reproduce explosively, creating huge floating blooms that can be seen from space. The colors come from chlorophyll and other pigments that the organisms use to capture light for photosynthesis. One type of phytoplankton known as “coccolithophores” have chalk-like plates that are highly light reflective. Blooms of coccolithophores often appear milky turquoise, such as seen here.
The location of the bloom sits over the Chatham Rise, an underwater plateau that stretches from New Zealand in the west to beyond the Chatham Islands. Currents flowing over this rise become turbulent, enhancing vertical mixing in the water column and bringing nutrients from the ocean floor upward to the upper layers, where phytoplankton float. The waters over the Chatham Rise frequently give rise to large blooms of phytoplankton, especially in the spring and summer.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 12/2/2020
Resolutions:
1km (74.2 KB), 500m (250 KB), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Swirls of milky blue stretched across the South Pacific island off of the Chatham Islands in early December 2020. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of the scene on December 2.
The beautiful colors come from a large bloom of single-celled, plant-like organisms called phytoplankton. These microscopic organisms live in these waters year-round in small numbers. When presented with the right amount of nutrients, light, and water temperature, phytoplankton begin to reproduce explosively, creating huge floating blooms that can be seen from space. The colors come from chlorophyll and other pigments that the organisms use to capture light for photosynthesis. One type of phytoplankton known as “coccolithophores” have chalk-like plates that are highly light reflective. Blooms of coccolithophores often appear milky turquoise, such as seen here.
The location of the bloom sits over the Chatham Rise, an underwater plateau that stretches from New Zealand in the west to beyond the Chatham Islands. Currents flowing over this rise become turbulent, enhancing vertical mixing in the water column and bringing nutrients from the ocean floor upward to the upper layers, where phytoplankton float. The waters over the Chatham Rise frequently give rise to large blooms of phytoplankton, especially in the spring and summer.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 12/2/2020
Resolutions:
1km (74.2 KB), 500m (250 KB), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
