Why does the Salish Sea glow in the dark?

I find it weird that English apparently doesn’t have an everyday word for marine bioluminescence. It’s such an academic word. What would traditional sailors and fishermen have called it? In my language (Norwegian) we call it «morild» (sea-fire).

>a lot of people think about bioluminescence in these tropical regions, but we have it right up here in this very diverse and rich environment

non tropical, colder in winter than Seattle, warmer in summer, the waters of New England have a fair amount of bioluminescence. you can see it brushing your hand through the water, at the tips of oars, etc (only in the dark)

unlike the dinoflagellates in this video (which are eukaryotes she calls algae, not sure if algae have flagella? looked it up "dinoflagellates are not classified as plants; they are unicellular protists that can exhibit both plant-like and animal-like characteristics. Some dinoflagellates are photosynthetic, using sunlight to produce energy, while others are heterotrophic, consuming other organisms for nutrients.") from somebody whoi oughta know I was told for the east coast it's ctenaphores (the c is cilent) the largest mini creatures that use cilia to move. just looking on wikipedia, apparently to cope with feeding themselves they also eat copepods which can also be bioluminescent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctenophora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copepod

Bioluminescence never feels real even after you read the science. What surprised me is how sensitive the phenomenon is to environmental changes.