June 17, 2022 - Bloomin' Black Sea

Black Sea
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Aquatic artists painted glorious jewel-toned colors in the normally
dark waters of the Black Sea in mid-June 2022. The Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite
acquired a true-color image of the astounding scene on June 16. This
image captures swirls ranging from deep olive, to turquoise, to
milky-blue in the western end of the Black Sea, off the coasts of
Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

The tiny artists didn’t create the multi-hued masterpiece with brushes
and paint, they created it from the pigments found within their own
cellular structure. Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that
contain chlorophyll and other pigments. Some, such as coccolithophores,
lend a milky tone to the colorful scene because they contain chalk-like
calcium carbonate plates in their structure. These tiny organisms live
in these waters year-round, but when conditions are perfect—proper
temperature, sufficient nutrients, and enough sunlight—they can
reproduce explosively, creating gigantic blooms that can be easily seen
from space. With more than 150 species of phytoplankton identified from
the waters of the Black Sea, when multiple species bloom at the same
time, the result is often a stunning, multi-toned palette.

Large blooms of phytoplankton can be beneficial, because they form the
base of the marine food web and provide nourishment for fish and other
organisms, and because they can sequester carbon, keeping it out of the
atmosphere. However, phytoplankton may also be harmful, especially when
large blooms die rapidly. Decaying plants reduce oxygen out of water,
creating conditions that are so oxygen-poor that they are called “dead
zones”, because little life can survive under such conditions.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 6/16/2022
Resolutions: 1km (248.2 KB), 500m (691.8 KB), 250m (1.9 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-06-17

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