Undisputed Global Warming: What Algal Blooms Say About It

Many are still raising eyebrows on the concept of global warming and denying the facts that have been proliferating the global and local news. Now experts have found another proof that the earth really is warming up, and algal blooms provided the evidence.

In a study by researchers from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, findings on the white algae called coccolithophore have provided a new proof that the seas are getting really warmer. According to the results of their satellite observations, traces of the coccolithophore blooms are starting to expand southward due to increasing temperatures of the sea even toward the polar regions.

Complementing the satellite image analysis with on-site sampling from seabeds, the team also linked the existence of the coccolithophores with the warm periods recorded hundreds of years ago.

"In a two-metre core, you have a 200,000-year-old record of sediment deposition," lead researcher Bella Duncan mentioned in ScienceDirect. "We took samples at frequent, regularly-spaced intervals down the cores to gain an insight into coccolith production in the past."

"Our results how that during that last warm period, when the ocean was about 1 to 2 degrees warmer than present, sediments on the seabed were mainly made up of coccoliths," Duncan added.

"The same process appears to be happening now, suggesting the New Zealand ocean is currently responding [to] the present phase of global warming. This is also a trend that has been increasingly observed in other parts of the world," said Lionel Carter, one of the team members.

In a statement by ScienceAlert's Josh Hrala, he also claimed that the current situation of the oceans is not getting better. He noted that the seas actually absorbed roughly 93 percent of climate change's warming effect to save the land from a pricklier heat.