ON A computer screen, the California coastline bleeds pools of vivid red. As I watch, some of the red swirls out into the open ocean and disappears, while some seeps ominously into bays and inlets along the shore. “You can see how the ocean is concentrating it and diffusing it,” says Raphael Kudela, as he clicks the replay button.
The red stain is in fact a simulation of the emergence and movement of massive amounts of chlorophyll in the ocean, a telltale sign of an algal bloom. Blooms of algae have long been a part of life in the waters…
