Canada is not immune. by Larry Powell Intensifying phytoplankton blooms off the coasts of BC and Washington State, 2006. Credit: Lian Feng After pouring over almost 800 thousand NASA satellite images taken over almost two decades, a team of Chinese researchers has generated a map which paints perhaps the clearest picture yet of the extent of these blooms - organisms that can be agents of either good or ill. Their findings have just been published in the journal, Nature. Dr. Lian Feng of the Southern University of Science in Shenzhen, China and colleagues discovered, phytoplankton were affecting 8.6% of the entire global ocean area in 2020 - a stunning expanse of 31.47 million km2. That was an increase of 13.2%, or 3.97 million km2 from 2003. They found algal blooms in 126 out of the 153 coastal countries examined. Globally, both the size and frequency of blooms increased significantly over the study period, Phytoplankton are families of microscopic algae. Their blooms heave been ac
