NASA MODIS Image of the Day: August 22, 2011 – Phytoplankton bloom in the Barents Sea
The area in this image is located immediately north of the Scandinavian peninsula.
The region is a junction where several ocean current systems—including the Norwegian Atlantic, the Persey, and east Spitsbergen currents—merge and form a front known as the North Cape Current.
The intersecting waters, plus stiff winds, promote mixing of these waters as well as raising nutrients from the deep. By August, the nearly year-round ice cover has reached maximum melt, and the water of the shallow Barents Sea becomes freshest (less saline), both from ice melt and from freshwater river runoff. The waters of the Sea also reach their warmest surface temperatures in August. These factors, along with the mixing of waters and upwelling of nutrients from sources originating outside the Sea, make conditions perfect for the growth of phytoplankton.
