Green Sea in satellite images

I'm sure there's a logical scientific reason for this, probably Aurora Borealis, or diffraction, or something, but does anyone know why it looks like this?



For the larger image, which shows the location I looked at, and the source in flash earth (www.flashearth.com), using NASA Terra imagery.

Large image
The location is just north of Britain, about equal latitude to Iceland. Probably to do with where actually gets light this time of year, but I'm not sure.

[edit on 8-1-2008 by apex]

Probably an algal bloom. I'm not a marine biologist, so don't take my word on it as an absolute truth.

Yea we're punping iron filings into the oceans in an attempt to bloom algae to produce carbon dioxide. Red Tide is killing me in florida. It has been said


“Give me half a tanker of iron and I’ll give you the next ice age.”


This is an issue that few people recognize.

Ok, it finally hit me, and it satisfies multiple conspiracies all at once.

Being the green sea seems to be just off of Britain, the land of the Real Puppet Masters of Royalty, the land of the blue-blooded royal reptiles can only mean one thing.
Global Warming is not really Man made after all but rather Reptilian Made. This for the purpose of turning turning this planet once again into a global greenhouse thus allowing reptiles to roam the Earth again.
Oh, and the illegal aliens are being allowed into this country because they are being rounded up to fill the land full of hot spicy hispanics so that when the Euro-Reptoids decide to colonize the United States of Amerexico once again they'll have more to snack on than the Aztec/Mayan Chuhuahua dogs from before.
Whoa, aren't the illegal decendents of the Aztecs/Mayan?

You betcha,...

Quick, somebody get me Spielberg's number?

Originally posted by depth om
Yea we're punping iron filings into the oceans in an attempt to bloom algae to produce carbon dioxide.

I think you mean reduce carbon dioxide.

Iron fertilization

reply to post by Beachcoma


Aye, thanks for that.

Isn't the down side to the Algae bloom is that when it dies off, the dead biomass goes to the sea floor, rots away and releases Methane (which is a more potent Green House Gas)?

reply to post by harddrive21


Possibly, but very little of the marine snow actually makes it to the bottom. And if it drops off deep enough, it can be entombed in gas hydrates (unless the temperature of the oceans rise significantly enough that the hydrates melt). The release of gas hydrates is a bigger concern and side effect of ocean warming than anything, in my opinion. The last ice age ended with ocean temperatures rising first, not with CO2 increasing -- something to think about.

I'd be more worried about oxygen poor regions of the oceans releasing nitrous oxides. Iron fertilization may reverse that condition.

Thanks Beachcoma for that information. You have put my mind at ease. It seems like we try all these "crazy" ideas to reverse any GW or for CO2 sequestering without knowing the full consequences of our actions. This one seems pretty safe though. I guess my last question is : with all the iron being concentrated in that area, are there any negative effects on other sea life or to humans? I don't think so, but I'm sure you know the answer.

reply to post by harddrive21


There is one possible negative side effect -- the decay of dead algal blooms in the deep sea regions may cause those areas to become oxygen-depleted. Currently we have not enough information about how the decline of the benthic (deep sea) populations will affect those closer to the surface. So caution is advised and any iron fertilization projects should only be done (for the moment) in regions where research has been done beforehand.

On a positive note, iron fertilization happens in nature anyway, and there has been no known negative side effects to that. When a volcano erupts, it seeds the oceans with iron particles and releases other particulate matter into the atmosphere, forming the seed points for water droplets in cloud cover (which increases surface reflectivity -- albedo). This is why whenever you hear someone saying that a volcanic eruption releases more CO2 than we humans do, they're not looking at the overall picture. Sure it does (sometimes) but it also brings in other benefits (which are often ignored) such that the net temperature increase is actually negative (unless it's a chain of VEI 8 eruptions... in which case, pray).

Another source of natural iron fertilization would be dust blowing off of the land, from deserts and other arid regions.

It's not an algal bloom. I suspect it's an illusion due to the low light - note it extends right across the Atlantic at the same latitude and appears (less obviously) to the west of N America in the Pacific.

Originally posted by Essan
It's not an algal bloom. I suspect it's an illusion due to the low light - note it extends right across the Atlantic at the same latitude and appears (less obviously) to the west of N America in the Pacific.

Thats what I thought, but I couldn't work out why it would be like that.