The ancient 'grim reaper' is attacking 33 countries

Scientists have discovered the unexpected cause of the algae blooms army, belonging to ancient creatures, are carrying beautiful and deadly green covering the surface of water on 6 continents.

The phenomenon with a romantic name is "algae blooms", making the water surface glow like a fanciful green, growing and present on all 6 continents, according to new research from the Institute of Science. Carnegie.

The fanciful color of the "grim reaper" from ancient times makes the surface of Lake St.Clair on the US-Canada border shines in a fanciful green - (photo: NASA).

The team used 30 years of NASA data and data from the Earthat 5 Earth satellite near the US Geological Survey. These satellite images helped them see the surface of the planet from 1984 to 2013 with many changes. Pictures of 71 large lakes of 33 countries scattered across the continents of the earth show the mysterious blue of "blooming algae" on a dense 2/3 of the lake. Only 6 lakes have a slight decrease.

Lake Okeechobee in Florida (USA) also shines bright green color, one of the shades and cyanobacteria when flowering makes up - (photo: NASA)

The essence of "Algae Bloom" Algal Bloom is cyanobacteria , an ancient class of organisms that has largely remained in its original state. They live in all kinds of water, but some prefer the cleaner lakes. When these bacteria bloom, they produce beautiful, fanciful blue or green colors, and sometimes brown or red.

Unfortunately, it was a deadly beauty. In addition to harms such as blocking sunlight that other aquatic organisms need to live, they also take up a large amount of oxygen and nutrients. Not only that, algae blooms also produce cyanotoxin, one of the most powerful natural toxins known, causing illness to humans and other organisms, which can damage the aquatic ecosystem where they invade. accounting for.

Another deadly green tint appeared on Lake Khanka, the border between Russia and China - (photo: NASA).

More dangerously, the analysis suggests that this ancient "god of death" seems to have proliferated with global warming. The lakes with little or no increase in the number of algal blooms are places where the climate is little or no warming. So it can be said that climate change is the one who helped this ancient class of organisms.

The research has just been published in the journal Nature.

• Video: The danger from blue algae blooms on rivers and lakes
• The process of collecting dead fish caused by algal blooms in Florida