How deep does sunlight go underwater?

Answer 1

That depends on how clear the water is. Water with high levels of silt, algae, and other debris blocks more water, so the sun doesn't penetrate as deep. Additionally, the you'd need to take into consideration weather as chopiness of the surface and cloud cover would both impact how deep light would go.

Answer 2

This depends entirely on the composition (contaminants, suspended solids, etcetera) of the water. The usual way of testing this is called a Secchi disc. The disc amounts to the scientific equivalent of a pure white dinner plate, with sturdy line to be able to pull it back out of the water and a marked pulley to measure how deep it is when observed. The disc is lowered into the water being tested and watched; when it can no longer be seen, the depth is observed; of course the test will be done several times. In Lake Tahoe, the water is clear down to about 75 feet; it used to be beyond eighty feet. We can roughly assume that light goes twice this depth (in useful amounts) . Plants and animals below that depth either get their nutrition from stuff falling from above, floating by in the currents, or occasional excursions to lesser depths.

Answer 3

Sunlight is energy and different colors have different amounts of energy. In water, light moves slower than in air. As sunlight goes down in the water more of its energy gets absorbed the deeper it goes. The colors with more energy go deeper in the water and the colors with less energy can not go as deep. Going from less energy to more energy the colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue. Going down underwater by 10 feet (3 meters) most of the red is gone, by 15 feet (4 1/2 meters) orange is gone, and by 33 feet (10 meters) yellow is gone. Deeper than 60 feet (20 meters) the colors you see are blue-green or blue-gray.

Answer 4

Depends primarily on:

1. Atmospherical conditions
2. Depth and Clarity of the water

There maybe a few other variants in there too, but that's the logical approach I suppose,.... Maybe this page might give you some extra scope,..

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Ocean_And_Oceanography

Hope this helps,...

Answer 5

It depends on the clarit of the water. Oceanographers use a secchi disc to determine water clarity.

Answer 6

3-4 feet!

Answer 7

less than 200 feet and then darkness gets darker

Answer 8

It will go as deep as the impurities will allow it to go.