Okay, so the world's oceans aren't about to turn neon pink. But they are about to look pretty different by the time 2100 rolls around, a study published Monday in Nature Communications has found.
The ocean's colors stem from how much sea life lies beneath the surface. Areas full of organisms look green because they're also full of phytoplankton, or algae, which reflect back green light, Phys.org details from the study. Areas with less life look more blue. But climate change is warming certain areas of the ocean and cooling others, swirling up ocean currents and the nutrients that phytoplankton feed on.
Right now, the greenest areas of the ocean are around the poles because that's where phytoplankton thrive. Warming waters will likely "brew up larger blooms of more diverse phytoplankton" and turn those areas even greener, MIT News writes. Bluer, tropical waters will meanwhile get even bluer as phytoplankton lose nutrients and heat and die out, a computer simulation used by researchers to predict algae growth shows.
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These shift won't be immediately obvious to the naked eye, one researcher tells MIT News. Still, the team predicts half of the world's oceans will change color due to climate change by 2100. And more importantly, the growth or depletion of phytoplankton will affect "the rest of the food web that phytoplankton supports," a researcher says. It all makes for just another visible example of climate change.
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