Cyanobacteria Blooms in the Baltic Sea

Caused by the excessive introduction of nutrients to the marine environment, eutrophication remains one of the principal threats to the biodiversity of the Baltic Sea. It is driven by a surplus of the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus in the sea: this nutrient over-enrichment then causes elevated levels of phytoplankton. The blue/green swirls that can be observed on the images are cyanobacteria or phytoplankton blooms that were captured by the Landsat 8 satellite (courtesy of USGS) and enhanced through our pre-processing maneuver. The maximum area of 125,000 km2 covered by cyanobacteria blooms was observed on August 14, 2015.