In May and
early June, satellite images of the North Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland captured partial glimpses of blooms of microscopic marine plants.
On June 4,
2007, the skies over the ocean cleared, displaying the sea's spring bloom. A
bright blue bloom stretches north from the Mouth of the River Shannon, and
tapers off north of Clare Island. A second bloom is visible to the north,
wrapping around County Donegal. The image was captured by the Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
on NASA's Terra satellite.
Cold,
nutrient-stocked water often wells up to the surface from the deeper ocean
along coastal shelves and at the edges of ocean currents. When it does, it
delivers nutrients that fuel large blooms of single-celled plants collectively
known as phytoplankton. The plants are the foundation of the marine food web,
and their abundance in this area explains why the waters of western Ireland support numerous fisheries and populations of large mammals like seals, whales, and
dolphins.
Like plants
on land, phytoplankton make their food through photosynthesis, harnessing
sunlight for energy using chlorophyll and other light-capturing pigments. The
pigments alter the way light reflects off the surface water, appearing as
swirls of turquoise and green against the darker blue of the ocean.
Though
tiny, these plants play a big role in Earth's carbon and climate
cycles. Worldwide, they remove about as much carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere during photosynthesis as land plants do.
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