Context: Recently, New study, entitled Ecosystem state change in the Arabian Sea shows that Algal Blooms in the Arabian sea threatens our food chain.
Key Points of the study

• The study, fuelled by the recent loss of snow over the Himalayan-Tibetan plateau region, is an unusually all-encompassing snapshot of the interconnected impacts of climate change.
• India continues to grapple with the coronavirus emergency, but another grave threat to public health is the focus of a dramatic Nature Scientific Reports study released recently.
• The study has been tracking the astonishing, exponential spread of a tiny plankton (Noctilucascintillans) in the Arabian Sea over almost two decades.
• Algal bloom, almost unknown in these waters, is now growing thick, malodorous green swirls and filaments that are visible even from space.
• They occupy an area that is almost three times the size of the state of Texas.
• And since they are not a preferred food for most higher trophic organisms, they mostly attract only slaps, jellyfish and turtles, thereby short-circuiting the food chain in the Arabian Sea.
• The stunning growth in Noctiluca“blooms" has calamitous implications for the economies and societies that surround the Arabian Sea. 
• The study indicates that countries like India now face an unavoidable reckoning, as the melting of Himalayan and Tibetan glaciers can not be declined. 
• They are central to our weather, food and health security, and feed the rivers that are integral to our culture and identity. 
• The algal blooms are threatening food-chains in the regions surrounding Arabian sea. Therefore,  countries have to act now, to escape the growing crisis.
• At least 120 million people along these coasts are now at risk.

About Algal Bloom

• It is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems, and is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from their pigments.
• The term algae encompass many types of aquatic photosynthetic organisms, both macroscopic, multicellular organisms like seaweed and microscopic, unicellular organisms like cyanobacteria.
• Algal bloom commonly refers to rapid growth of microscopic, unicellular algae, not macroscopic algae. An example of a macroscopic algal bloom is a kelp forest.
• Algal blooms are the result of a nutrient, like nitrogen or phosphorus from fertilizer runoff, entering the aquatic system and causing excessive growth of algae.
• The process of the oversupply of nutrients leading to algae growth and oxygen depletion is called eutrophication.
• Blooms that can injure animals or the ecology are called “harmful algal blooms” (HAB), and can lead to fish die-offs, cities cutting off water to residents, or states having to close fisheries.