The Weather Channel
Tuesday April 3, 2018
By Sean Breslin
A large winter phytoplankton bloom is seen in the Gulf of Aden on Feb. 12, 2018. (NASA)
That isn't Photoshop in the photo above – that's a real phytoplankton bloom in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia.
The winter bloom was captured Feb. 12 in an image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. Once the image was processed, the bright green blooms could be clearly seen in swirls that look fake.
On the ground, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory biological oceanographer Joaquim Goes captured a photograph of the bloom off the coast of Muscat, Oman, on Feb. 12.
Such blooms are more common in mid-summer near Yemen and mid-fall near Somalia, but this winter event isn't unprecedented, the report added. Phytoplankton can provide food for fish and other wildlife in the water, but some blooms can also be deadly for sea creatures, according to NASA.
Many such blooms in the Arabian Sea occur as a result of the monsoon season, according to Scientific American. It isn't yet clear what kind of phytoplankton was in this bloom; further testing will be necessary to draw any conclusions, NASA also said.
"NASA hopes to, some day, be able to better identify different types of phytoplankton from orbit through hyperspectral instruments designed specifically for ocean-color remote sensing," Norman Kuring, an ocean scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the report. "The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, currently in development, is such an endeavor."
A phytoplankton bloom is seen in the water off the coast of Muscat, Oman, on Feb. 12, 2018. (Joaquim Goes/NASA)