Beneath The Caribbean (22 Min)Plankton is the base of the food web in all oceans and, because there is little plankton in the tropics, tropical ocean water is nearly sterile in comparison with the fertile waters of the temperate oceans.
Why is the Caribbean sea so blue?
"The reason the ocean is blue is due to the absorption and scattering of light," NASA explains. "The blue wavelengths of light are scattered, similar to the scattering of blue light in the sky, but absorption is a much larger factor than scattering for the clear ocean water.
Why do phytoplankton not grow in the deep ocean?
Photosynthesis requires sunlight and therefore phytoplankton are restricted to the upper 50 – 100 m of oceanic water bodies because this is the maximum depth to which sunlight penetrates the water environment. Growth also depends upon mineral nutrients with the greatest supply coming from land.
Is the water in the Caribbean clear?
The open Caribbean and Mediterranean, and most open ocean for that matter, have low productivity in relation to coastal areas, and thus have much clearer waters. In short, the water is cloudy and dark because there is matter suspended in it, and sunlight just can't penetrate as far.
Why is there no plankton in the tropics?
The natural cooling of the past 8 million years that allowed the plankton to flourish in the tropics has been reversed by climate change during the past century. “Earth's current biosphere evolved for ice ages,” said lead author Adam Woodhouse, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics.
Why is there no plankton in the Caribbean?
Why is there no plankton in tropical water?
In fact, the tropics have very low amounts of plankton. This is the reason for such clear water in the tropics. Because the tropics have warm surface water, even in the winter, the thermocline never goes away, and the nutrients stay trapped down below in the depths.
Can Earth survive without plankton?
Their existence is critical for all life forms on this planet, because without phytoplankton, life on Earth as we know it would never have developed, and without it, it would cease to exist. A teaspoon of sea water can contain as many as one million one-celled phytoplankton.
What will happen if plankton went extinct?
If plankton numbers were to decline as drastically as 90%, there would be a significant reduction in atmospheric oxygen. Further, plankton are a major carbon sink. Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton consume carbon dioxide on a scale equivalent to forests and other land plants.
Does all water have plankton?
Zooplankton are small animals that live in the water column of almost all water bodies, including oceans, lakes and ponds, although they mostly cannot survive in rivers and streams.
What is the problem with the Caribbean sea?
According to the 2019 report led by the World Bank on Marine Pollution in the Caribbean: Not a Minute to Waste, 80% of marine pollution of the Caribbean Sea results from “direct or indirect discharge of solids and liquids from land-based sources such as rivers, outfalls, waterways, agricultural runoff, and …
What is the dirtiest sea ocean in the world what makes it the worst?
The most polluted ocean is the Pacific with 2 trillion plastic pieces and one third of the plastic found in this ocean circulates in the North Pacific Gyre. An ocean gyre is a large system of circular ocean currents formed by global wind patterns and forces of the Earth's rotation.