Bloomin' Baltic: The Earth as Art

These colorful swirls may look straight out of a Monet or Van Gogh painting, but they're actually a phytoplankton bloom in the Baltic Sea.

Phytoplankton are tiny marine plants that drift at the surface of the sea. They are the most abundant type of ocean life and, like most plants, are green in color since they use green-pigmented chlorophyll for photosynthesis.

While individual phytoplankton are too tiny to see, they can create giant "clouds" when they get together in the ocean. The swirls of this cloud highlight sea currents.

Commonly known as "the grass of the sea," monitoring phytoplankton is important because it forms the base of the marine food web. But it can also be harmful - out of control blooms can use up all the oxygen in large areas of water, causing other marine life to die. Other types, like "red tide," can be toxic to fish and humans.

Large blooms like this are common this time of year in the Baltic Sea when warm weather and high concentrations of phosphorus nutrients create ideal conditions for phytoplankton growth.

This image was taken with the European Space Agency's Envisat, a satellite designed to measure the atmosphere, ocean, land, and ice.

--Bjorn Carey

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Credit: European Space Agency