Of course, water’s inherent color doesn’t account for all of the blueness of the ocean. This tendency toward a light greenish-blue color is weak enough that you don’t see it in a glass or a bathtub full of water, but it becomes noticeable as light passes through thicker samples, as in a lake or ocean. The fact is that water is not colorless.ĭue to the harmonic vibration of the oxygen-hydrogen bonds in water molecules, it happens to absorb long wavelengths of light (red, orange, yellow) much better than it does shorter wavelengths, like blue light. Look at a photo of the Arctic or Antarctica: even on the grayest of days, glacial ice can have the kind of brilliant cyan blue you rarely see outside of an NBA jersey from the 1990s. Sure enough, on cloudy days (which were plentiful in Seattle, where I grew up) the lakes looked more gray than blue.īut my parents lied to me, friends-and maybe yours did too.
So why were lakes and oceans blue? My parents told me that the blue color was due to the surface of the water reflecting the sky, and I believed them. I remember noticing as a child that a glass of water from the kitchen tap was colorless. Ocean Myth #2: The Ocean Is Blue Because It Reflects the Sky. It turns out that none of them really hold water.
celebrates National Oceans Month, so we’ve asked Skipper Ken Jennings to navigate us through four maritime myths that refuse to die. June is the time of year the United Nations observes World Oceans Day and the U.S.
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