Why does water seem to get bluer the warmer or colder it gets, like in the Caribbean or the Arctic?

Question

Why does water seem to get bluer the warmer or colder it gets, like in the Caribbean or the Arctic?

In: Earth Science

Answer 1

Eva01beast has the best answer so far, but it does leave a few things out. The microscopic stuff that lives in water that we can’t see also colors it. There are lots of places where the water is more or less clear because of temperature or salinity. Blue Lake in Oregon is extremely cold and you can see 300′ to the bottom because nothing lives in it. The gulf is much more saline than most oceans and that causes some of the clarity as well as the general shallowness.