Recently, a study has indicated that Tropical Ocean waters are turning Green in colour due to alteration in phytoplankton communities.
- The green colour comes from chlorophyll, a pigment that helps microscopic plant-like phytoplankton make food.
- According to the study, Climate change has altered the colour of 56 per cent of the world’s oceans.
- The southern Indian Ocean, in particular, has seen a significant colour change.
- The reason highlighted for the change in colour seems to determine the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean.
- Currently, oceans absorbed 25 per cent of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
- The study also predicted that predicted that more than 50 per cent of the world’s oceans will shift in colour due to climate change by 2100.
- They analysed data generated from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite, which has been monitoring ocean colour for two decades between 2002 and 2022.
- The team then used to model to simulate two scenarios: one with the addition of greenhouse gases and the other without them.
- The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere wherever air meets water.
- Wind causes waves and turbulence, giving more opportunity for the water to absorb the carbon dioxide.
- Fish and other animals in the ocean breathe oxygen and give off carbon dioxide (CO2), just like land animals.
- Tropical oceans encircle Earth in an equatorial region between the Tropic of Cancer (23.5° North latitude) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5° South latitude).
- The central portions of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and most of the Indian Ocean lie in the tropics.
- The warm tropical oceans play a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate and large-scale weather patterns.
- Much of the planet’s biological diversity resides in the tropics, and the global distribution of species and ecosystems depends on oceanographic and atmospheric processes that occur in the equatorial oceans.
- Tropical upwelling support huge populations of microscopic plants and animals called phytoplankton and zooplankton.
- Plankton, in turn, feed many species of fish and other marine life, and humans who depend on fish for food.
- Tropical fisheries account for about half of the world’s fish catch, even though tropical oceans represent only 0.01 percent of Earth’s ocean volume.
- Coral reefs are another well-recognized feature of tropical oceans.
- The seas surrounding tropical islands and low-latitude continental shelves away from major river deltas are ideal for coral reef formation.
- A change in colour due to an increase or decline in the population will impact organisms that feed on plankton.
- It will also change how much the ocean will take up carbon because different types of plankton have different abilities to absorb carbon dioxide.
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