• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

The Climate Crisis Is Literally Changing The Color Of Our Planet

September 23, 2022 by Deborah Bloomfield

Climate change is impacting the Earth so acutely that it’s rapidly changing the color of the planet. In a new study, scientists have shown how warming global temperatures are turning the world’s blue lakes to a murky green-brown color.

The color of a lake is influenced by a bunch of factors, most notably levels of algae and sediment. The latest research also shows how air temperature, precipitation, lake depth, and elevation also help to determine a lake’s hue. 

Advertisement

Blue lakes account for less than a third of the world’s lakes and green-brown make up the remaining two-thirds. Bluer lakes tend to be deeper and are found in cooler, high-latitude regions with high precipitation and winter ice cover, while green-brown lakes are found in drier regions, continental interiors, and along coastlines.

Swamped by climate change, it looks like these rare blue lakes are becoming even more uncommon. Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looked at over 5 million Landsat-8 satellite images detailing 85,360 lakes and reservoirs from around the world from 2013 to 2020, keeping a close eye on their color changes. You can see the findings of their work in this interactive map.

The new study presents the most extensive map of lake color, revealing that most of the world’s lakes are already green-brown rather than blue.

The new study presents the most extensive map of lake color, revealing that most of the world’s lakes are already green-brown rather than blue. Image credit: AGU/Geophysical Research Letters

The researchers found that blue lakes are on the decline. They believe the reason for this is rising temperatures associated with climate change that are causing algae to thrive in lakes. Although microscopic, the build-up of the algae can profoundly change the change of a lake en-mass.

Advertisement

“Warmer water, which produces more algal blooms, will tend to shift lakes towards green colors,” Catherine O’Reilly, an aquatic ecologist at Illinois State University and author of the new study, explained in a statement. 

“Nobody wants to go swim in a green lake,” said O’Reilly, “so aesthetically, some of the lakes that we might have always thought of as a refuge or spiritual places, those places might be disappearing as the color changes.”

However, aesthetic changes are just the beginning of the trouble. The shift in color is also an indication of how these ecosystems are drastically changing, which will affect the wildlife and humans that rely on them.

Advertisement

“If you’re using lakes for fisheries or sustenance or water drinking water, changes in water quality that are likely happening when lakes become greener are probably going to mean it’s going to be more expensive to treat that water,” explained O’Reilly. 

“There might be periods where the water isn’t usable, and fish species might no longer be present, so we’re not going to get the same ecosystem services essentially from those lakes when they shift from being blue to being green.”

The new study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Mexico urges U.S. to invest in region to stem migration
  2. Struggling Laschet attacks rival on economy as German vote looms
  3. Gas price surge, just one more headwind for world economy
  4. Why and when startups should look to diverse sources of capital

Source Link: The Climate Crisis Is Literally Changing The Color Of Our Planet

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Chimps Are Sticking Grass In Their Ears And Rears As They Embrace “Pointless” Fad
  • Hui Te Rangiora: Old Māori Legend Suggests They May Have Discovered Antarctica 1,000 Years Before Europeans
  • “Potential Impact On Saturn”: Astronomers Appeal For Help As Video Appears To Show Object Hitting The Gas Giant
  • What Is Prosopometamorphopsia? The “Exceedingly Rare” Condition That Made A Patient See Faces As Dragons
  • Are We In An Enormous Void? It Could Explain What’s Wrong With Our Model Of The Universe
  • Woylies Boing Back Into Western Australia Thanks To Groundbreaking Wildlife Project
  • North America’s Oldest Pterosaur And Turtle Fossils Found In Arizona’s Petrified Forest
  • Proposed “Dark Dwarfs” Near The Galactic Center Could Reveal The Nature Of Dark Matter
  • Watch: 18-Kilometer-High Ash Cloud Looms Over Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki After “Explosive” Eruption
  • “ShipGoo001”: Mystery Of Entirely New Lifeform Discovered Coating A Great Lakes Ship
  • Rare White Humpback Whale Calf Filmed By Drone Off Australia’s East Coast
  • Who Was Buried At Cave Of Salome: A Female Disciple, Jesus’ Midwife, Or A Princess?
  • “Hidden” Changes To US Health Data Swapping “Gender” For “Sex” Spark Fears For Public Trust
  • Easter Island Was Never As Isolated As We Thought – Study Puts That “Strange Argument” To Bed
  • If Birds Are Dinosaurs, Why Are None As Big As T. Rexes?
  • Psychologists Demonstrate Illusion That Could Be Screwing Up Our Perception Of Time
  • Why Are So Many Enormous Roman Shoes Being Discovered At Hadrian’s Wall?
  • Scientists Think They’ve Pinpointed Structural Differences In Psychopaths’ Brains
  • We’ve Found Our Third-Ever Interstellar Visitor, Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild, And Much More This Week
  • The “Eyes Of Clavius” Will Be Visible On The Moon Today, Thanks To Clair-Obscur Effect
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version