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Asked by Mad scientist to Arlene, Baljit, Jesus, MG, Michael on 9 Nov 2015.
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Jesus Calvo-Castro answered on 9 Nov 2015:
Hi @mad scientist. What a great question! The colour that we perceive objects (like the sea) is due to the way the radiation from the sun interacts with these objects. Also, you need to know that the colour that we see is the complementary to the colour that is absorbed. So, the sea water absorbs mainly any other colour than blue, which is reflected and that’s why this is the colour we see.
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Baljit Ghatora answered on 9 Nov 2015:
Good question Mad scientist… The sea is actually clear and depending on which colours it absorbed it would appear a different colour…what would you say if I asked you if it is really blue? Or is a shade of turquoise or green?
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Maire Gorman answered on 10 Nov 2015:
Have a glass of tapwater-its clear and colourless
(chemistry teacher taught me there is a difference in meaning between clear and colourless-think about it!)
The colour of the sea, sky, raindbows, sunset, sunrise etc is basically how the light is scattered around by the particles in the atmosphere/water
Raleigh scattering is fancy term! There is a cool experiment you can do here:
http://www.weatherwizkids.com/experiments-bluesky.htm -
Arlene McBroom answered on 16 Nov 2015:
Hi @mad scientist adding to what the other guys have already said. The reasons that the sea appears blue in colour is because:
1. Reflection from the sky (obvious I know)
2. Scattering of light, particularly of nitrogen particles – these absorb all other wavelengths of light and reflect blue ( which is 450-495nm).The reason the sea looks different colours in different countries (think of a nice beach in the Bahamas vs a beach here) is due to the concentrations of different minerals
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