Phytoplankton, Sentinel-3, 27 April 2026

Image of the week: Marine algae blooms off the UK coast

Watching our Earth from space

This week’s image shows patches of phytoplankton off the southwest coast of the UK and southern Ireland and sediment plumes in the Bristol Channel. The image was captured by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites on 27 April 2026.

Last Updated

29 April 2026

Published on

29 April 2026

Phytoplankton are microscopic marine algae that form the basis of marine food chains. They also play a key role in sustaining life on Earth as they are responsible for producing over half of the world’s oxygen and they help regulate the climate as they absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere during photosynthesis.

This image from Sentinel-3 has been fine-tuned to make it easier to distinguish ocean colour features like phytoplankton blooms as well as atmospheric phenomena, such as dust and smoke.

This new enhanced RGB product showing phytoplankton etc can be found on EUMETview.

Phytoplankton image

The image was captured by the OLCI instrument onboard one of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites on 27 April 2026.

EUMETSAT operates the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites, in cooperation with ESA, and delivers the marine data on behalf of the European Union.

More info

Learn more about how algal blooms are monitored using Copernicus Sentinel-3 and other satellites.

Visualise a whole year of ocean colour data

Visualise Copernicus Sentinel-3 data with EUMETView or Sentinel-2 and -3 data with WEkEO

Access ocean data from EUMETSAT User Portal

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