Ocean water has a green tint near Craig and Klawock, Alaska.
Observation by Shannon Yates:
The waters surrounding Craig and Klawock, Alaska are a greenish color (and not just the shores). I also work with the HABS and Shellfish work with SEATOR and did not see any significant algae blooms. We are getting inquires as to what is causing this.
7/26/2018 Update: Just did more microscope samples and I didn’t see anything in the slides again and our waters are warmer than they should be at this time and still greenish colored.
Jeanette Gann, Oceanographer with NOAA Fisheries, writes:
Without samples it's difficult to say, but those 'caribbean-like' greenish waters up here tend to happen when there's a coccolithophore bloom under way.
Incidentally, coccolithophore blooms in the Bering have been associated with seabird die-offs among other things. The article Bering Sea Blues can give a bit of background and some more info.
Comments from LEO Editors:
We checked daily satellite imagery collected by NASA to see the extent of the bloom. In the image from July 13th, a green tint is visable in the water near Prince of Wales Island. The green hue expands over the later part of July, before diminishing in early August. The LEO Consultant for this post Jeanette Gann describes the coccolithophore bloom in a NASA Earth Observatory article, noting that the bloom is occurring slightly later than normal due to an unusually cold spring in Southeast Alaska. *Erica Lujan*
