A team of Indian and American scientists have found that global warming was is driving the proliferation of harmful algae in the Arabian Sea.
Algae Noctiluca, popularly known as sea sparkle as it glows in the dark, is said to be deleterious to aquatic life and ecosystems, as it excretes ammonia toxic to ocean life, and also thrives on fish-food in the food chain.
Aneesh Lotliker, the principal investigator of a study that was done by the scientists from Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) here, overturned the earlier notion that chemical effluents and oxygen were linked to the proliferation of harmful algae in the sea.
“Global warming is driving the growth. Besides remote-sensing data, observations were also made with argo-floats in the ocean,” said C. Udaya Bhaskar, one of the study’s authors.
The scientists hope their research work would pave the way for better monitoring of harmful algae to preserve fish life.
