Regions Exhibiting Decreased Phytoplankton Levels and Increased Sea Surface Temperatures

  • Released Thursday, October 8, 2009
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Throughout most of Earth's ocean, as the surface layer of the ocean warms, the water becomes less dense and forms a cap, rather than mixing down to allow cooler, nutrient-rich water to well up. Over time, areas with less mixing show reduced productivity and less phytoplankton. This data visualization highlights regions where a strong correlation between high sea surface temperatures and decreased phytoplankton productivity occurred from 1997-2006. For nearly a decade, the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) has been making global observations of phytoplankton productivity. On December 6, 2006, NASA-funded scientists announced that warming sea surface temperatures over the past decade have caused a global decline in phytoplankton productivity.

This animation depicts a rotating Earth with highlighted areas marking the regions where a strong correlation between high sea surface temperatures and decreased phytoplankton productivity occurred.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become one DigitalGlobe.).

This page was originally published on Thursday, October 8, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.

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Papers used in this visualization

Behrenfeld at. al., Nature 444, 752-755 (7 December 2006)

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