Phytoplankton are small organisms that live in both fresh and salt water, and many of them are single-celled plants. That makes them too small to be seen individually with the naked eye. However, when there are enough of them in the water, it can give the water a green color. Large enough concentrations can even be seen by satellite.
Phytoplankton are important because they are responsible for half of the total amount of oxygen produced by all plant life. They are eaten by krill, which in turn are eaten by whales. Thus they are also important in the food chain.
NASA has used their MODIS satellite to look at the chlorophyll concentration, as well as the sea surface temperature from the coast of Maine up to Nova Scotia. The images show that more Phytoplankton are growing to the north in the cooler waters, rather than the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream. It is interesting to see that in both images, you can see the eddies formed by the Gulf Stream as it heads towards Europe.
These images show one of those rich mixing basins: the northwest Atlantic Ocean. Based on data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, these maps show the concentration of chlorophyll (top) and sea surface temperatures (bottom) in the region from August 29 to September 5, 2010.
via : Ocean Crossroads @ NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day
