File:North Sea Blooms (MODIS 2020-06-17).jpg

English: Spring’s lengthening days and warming temperatures spur spectacular scenes across the Earth: fields of tulips in the Netherlands; carpets of orange poppies in Italy; acres of bluebonnets across Texas; and jewel-toned phytoplankton blooms in the North Sea. While we can appreciate the colorful blooms of spring plants by driving or walking to visit them, the blooms of the plant-like phytoplankton are best seen from space.

On June 16, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of a dazzling spring bloom in the North Sea. The greens of Norway and Denmark can be seen in the northeast and southeast in this image while clouds in the west hide the United Kingdom from view.

Phytoplankton live in these waters year-round in relatively small numbers. When conditions are right—correct water temperature, daylight length, and nutrient load—they reproduce explosively, creating these magnificent blooms that contain billions of organisms. These tiny, plant-like organisms turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen. In turn, they become food for the grazing zooplankton, shellfish, and finfish of the sea. Blooms fade as nutrient availability drops or they are consumed by booming numbers of zooplankton.