Phytoplankton in the Benguela current, shown by MERIS

The Benguela current is a cold ocean current off the west coast of South Africa. It is an upwelling from deep beneath the sea; the combination of its cool nutrient-rich waters and the hot Sun supports a high population of phytoplankton. Taken last October, this MERIS image of the Benguela current depicts concentrations of phytoplankton chlorophyll. Meanwhile researchers were sailing in the area to validate the accuracy of MERIS algorithms used to derive this image from raw data.