Science Alert: [2] A loss of snow and ice on Earth’s highest mountain peaks could be driving dangerous changes in the food chains of distant coastal water, according to new research.
[3] Like a gardener turning over soil, cold winter winds blowing down from the Himalayan mountains are known to fertilise the Arabian sea by chilling the surface and causing the dense waters to sink, only to be replaced with fresh currents rich in nutrients.
[4] Due to climate change, however, winter monsoons are rapidly becoming warmer and moister, leaving marine habitats with less oxygen and nutrients, and allowing microbes that thrive in an oxygen-depleted wasteland to bloom instead.
[5] Recently, it’s gotten so bad, the thick green swirls of algal blooms can actually be seen from space.
What you’re looking at is Noctiluca scintillans – also known as sea sparkle for its bioluminescent effects. This is a millimetre-long marine dinoflagellate that can survive and thrive without oxygen or sunlight. Before the turn of the century, however, its presence along the coasts of Somalia, Yemen, and Oman was practically unheard of.

Today, it regularly causes massive blooms with widespread effects on ecosystems and industries. Something has clearly changed quite rapidly, far more than seems natural, and researchers now think the rise of Noctiluca in the Arabian Sea has to do with the climate crisis.

“This is probably one of the most dramatic changes that we have seen that’s related to climate change,” says Joaquim I. Goes from Columbia University, who has been studying the rapid rise of this organism for more than 18 years.