Australian Bushfires Trigger Massive Phytoplankton Bloom In Ocean: Study

Researchers said smoke from Australia's 2019 to 2020 bushfire season triggered a massive phytoplankton bloom in the ocean between South America and New Zealand

SYDNEY, Sept. 16 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Sep, 2021 ) :Researchers said smoke from Australia's 2019 to 2020 bushfire season triggered a massive phytoplankton bloom in the ocean between South America and New Zealand.

The study was published in the Nature journal on Wednesday, and lead researcher Peter Strutton from the University of Tasmania said they found the links between the phytoplankton bloom and the smoke triggered by the bushfires.

In the summer beginning in 2019, the Australian state of New South Wales experienced bushfires of unprecedented extent and intensity.

The fires burnt through an estimated 5.3 million hectares or 6.7 percent of the state's total land area, realizing an estimated 715 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere -- more than Australia's total annual emissions.

Using satellite imagery, the researchers observed the smoke cover vast distances through the earth's stratosphere before settling above the Southern Ocean thousands of kilometers off Australia's east coast.

"The phytoplankton bloom in this region was unprecedented in the 22-year satellite record and lasted for around four months," said Strutton.

The bloom was shown to spread across an area of the ocean larger than the entire Australian continent.

"What made it more extraordinary is that the part of the season when the bloom appeared is usually the seasonal low point in phytoplankton, but the smoke from the Australian bushfires completely reversed that," said the researcher.