Satellite Eye for Galathea 3

Algae along South America seen from the Envisat satellite on the 17, 18, 19 and 20 Februar 2007.

The satellite images show algae blooming in the ocean. The red and yellow colors show high concentrations of algae (phytoplankton). The blue and green colors show lower concentrations. The algae are feed by nutrients that are forced from the bottom of the sea to the ocean surface by the cold Humbolt Current that is active along most of the South American coastline. The map covers more than 2000 km.

Vædderen departed from Antofagasta on 13 February and sailed north along the coastline of Chile and Peru. The green line shows the past track. On 21 February Vædderen is south of Lima in Peru. The expedition plan is to head further north along the coast and then to Galapagos. The route is shown with a red line.

Technical information

The algae maps consists of a mosaic of four satellite images recorded by the MERIS instrument onboard the Envisat satellite in the days 17, 18, 19 and 20 February 2007. Envisat belongs to the European Space Agency, ESA. MERIS observes the reflected sunlight in several channels (bands) and from these observations the algae concentration is calculated using an algorithm.

The mosaic is downloaded by Risø – DTU from Google Earth at Satellite Eye http://galathea.oersted.dtu.dk/GE.html

Read more about algae seen from satellite at Satellite Eye for Galathea 3 projektet ”Phytoplankton - seen from Space” http://galathea3.emu.dk/satelliteeye/projekter/phytoplankton/index_uk.html