Who poured "brilliant green" in an American lake?

Like plant life on land, phytoplankton in the water thrives under certain conditions. Phytoplankton in lake Pontchartrain in the us state of Louisiana these conditions include a sufficient amount of sunlight and nutrients, a long period of warm weather and the quiet wind.

In March in the lake, several times observed a phytoplankton bloom. Operational cartographer of the Earth (OLI) on the Landsat 8 got this image of a flourishing pond on March 3.

Lake Pontchartrain and other nearby lakes and bays are a huge estuary East of the Mississippi river Delta; together they occupy an area of 12,000 square kilometers. Unusually warm temperatures in February and March contributed to early spring flowering, which began even before entering the region of nutrients from the Upper Mississippi.

Flowering becomes more likely when excess nutrients to the river reaches the lake through the spillway bonnet Carre, Spillway. During the season of flood spillway sometimes open to divert water from the Mississippi river and relieve pressure on levees near New Orleans.

The eighth of March, the army corps of engineers the United States began to open the spillway in response to flooding along the rivers Ohio and Mississippi. Nutrients can provide a basis for algal blooms and cyanobacteria — single-celled organisms that contaminate drinking water and pose a risk to the health of humans and animals. Satellite images help to identify phytoplankton bloom, but to determine his view required direct sampling.

Additional nutrients from Mississippi contributed another bloom on March 25. However, cloud cover prevented satellite observations. By early April, flowering was less bright. The wind on the lake was interrupted by the second flowering and suppressed growth. But nutrients from the river may persist in the lake for several months, so this year the pond has definitely bloom.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»