Recent research, titled "Mysterious Increases of Whiting Events in the Bahama Banks" published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment and is based on satellite measurements, reports that scientists have noticed a surprising increase in the development of inexplicable patches of white water in the shallow seas off the coast of the Bahamas.
People have been seeing these so-called "whiting" incidents for more than a century, which often cover an area comparable to a few hundred football fields, but no one understands what causes them.
NASA's Earth Observatory Image of the Day for January 23, 2023 taken using the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI).
Whiting Events in the Bahamas
Scientists have been scratching their brains for more than seven years in an attempt to find out what causes the strange whiting outbreaks in the oceans, BGR reported. One of the most recent instances was observed from space in 2015, which shows many enormous white deposits off the coast of the Bahamas.
The 2015 snapshot is not the first time these unexplained whiting events happened, as NASA and others described the milky white splotches that emerge in seas, lakes, and other bodies of water all around the world. Despite how frequently they occur, they continue to perplex scientists because of their mysterious origin.
Whiting events like the one seen in the 2015 photo are not uncommon, although they are unusual. Scientists have already gathered samples from these strange phenomena, indicating that the discoloration is produced by fine-grained calcium carbonate that floats over the Bahama Banks that encircle the archipelago. However, it is still unclear why grain clouds arise periodically in the water.
The photograph and the subject of what causes these phenomena have resurfaced as a result of NASA's Earth Observatory publishing the 2015 image as the image of the day on Monday, January 23. NASA has reminded us of the wonder that these whiting occurrences provide by reviewing the old photograph. Furthermore, the locations where these occurrences occur appear to be expanding rapidly.
Oceanographer Chuanmin Hu wrote in the study that areas affected by these mysterious whiting events have grown significantly over a 10-year span from an average of 25 square kilometers (9.7 square miles) in 2003 to areas as large as 300-350 square kilometers (115-135 miles) in 2014 and 2015.
Seasonal Patterns Affect Whiting Events
On April 4, 2015, the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) took the natural-color image of the whiting event off the west coast of Great Bahama Bank. The bright dots are whitings, and they are surrounded by shallow water. The one in the picture lasted roughly two months before dissipating, while most whiting events range from a few days to three months.
Hu told NASA's Earth Observatory that there could be fascinating links between the pH or salinity of the water, as well as some environmental factors in the region.
Hu led a team of researchers from the University of South Florida to create a machine-learning model that would analyze thousands of satellite images of the Bahamas Banks from satellites taken by NASA Aqua satellite from 2003-2020. they assembled the longest and most detailed monthly, seasonal, and yearly records of the whiting events of the Bahamas Bank.
They discovered clear seasonal variations in the timing of whiting events, especially during spring and winter. Individual whiting patches ranged in size from 0.1 to 226 square kilometers, with the Great Bahama Bank averaging 2.4 square kilometers or approximately the area of 450 American football fields.
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