Ocean Color Image Gallery

Under a Winter Dust Cover

The skies over the Arabian Sea can be dusty during the winter monsoon, but orbiting radiometers designed to measure ocean color often have enough sensitivity to measure what is going on in the water beneath all the dust. In this case, a little processing of the above Aqua/MODIS data reveals widespread phytoplankton blooms.

The mixotrophic dinoflagellate, Noctiluca scintillans, may be responsible for some or many of the patterns seen here if trends noted in previous years are continuing.

The above image was collected on January 29, 2020. Click on it to get a larger version of the enhanced image.