On the east coast of the U.S., the water is warmer and is almost transparent whereas on the west coast, the water is a deep blue and is murky. Yet the same ocean water around Hawaii is clear. Why is there such a difference in color from location to location?
Well mostly the difference in color of the oceans is due to the muddy and unclear waters. no waters have color. But it is just the color of reflection. Please see the site i am listing below. It is a q & a type forum only!!
You may get your answer here too!!
We see the water great masses, seas, lakes, rivers, with colors: blue, green, gray, sometimes brownish. But if one picks up a pot of that water the aspect is not colored.
So the color is an optical phenomenon that is observed only when a large volume of water is considered and it depends on several things:
- The water reflects the sky, so its color depends upon the sky color at that time, and if
- it has white or grayish clouds.
- At other hand the water color depends also from the material that is found mostly into the sea water.
There are life there…animal and vegetal, a lot, included the phytoplankton, microscopic plants that either float or are suspended there. And of course there are dissolved and suspended also inorganic and organic matter coming from the sea floor and from rocks.
Color is the result of optical interactions from the incident solar light and the billions of microscopic particles present.
When the light of the sun reaches the sea surface different phenomena happen, part is reflected, part is absorbed and some is scattered. These phenomena happens with the water itself, the dissolved organic and inorganic matter and the suspended particles.
The color of sea water depends upon the distribution of these facts. It is blue for clear ocean water and shifts to darker for less transparent or more turbid waters, and depends also from the depth and transparency of the considered layer of water. And that color can be seen from space! That is why our planet Earth is called the "blue planet". Isn´t that wonderful?