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Record amount of seaweed is choking shores in the Caribbean

August 3, 2022800 Views

A record amount of seaweed is smothering Caribbean coasts from Puerto Rico to Barbados as tons of brown algae kill wildlife, choke the tourism industry and release toxic gases. More than 24 million tons of sargassum blanketed the Atlantic in June, up from 18.8 million tons in May, according to a monthly report published by the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab that noted “a new historical record.” July saw no decrease of algae in the Caribbean Sea, said Chuanmin Hu, an optical oceanography professor who helps produce the reports. “I was scared,” he recalled feeling when he saw the historic number for June. He noted it was 20% higher than the previous record set in May 2018. Seaweed covers the Atlantic shore in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts and Nevis, Wednesday, A...

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Scientists come closer to solving Caribbean seaweed mystery

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 29, 20211110 Views

Scientists were baffled when a band of seaweed longer than the entire Brazilian coastline sprouted in 2011 in the tropical Atlantic - an area typically lacking nutrients that would feed such growth. A group of U.S. researchers has fingered a prime suspect: human sewage and agricultural runoff carried by rivers to the ocean. The science is not yet definitive. This nutrient-charged outflow is just one of several likely culprits fueling an explosion of seaweed in warm waters of the Americas. Six scientists told Reuters they suspect a complex mix of climate change, Amazon rainforest destruction and dust blowing west from Africa’s Sahara Desert may be fueling mega-blooms of the dark-brown seaweed known as sargassum. A beach covered with sargassum is pictured near a hotel in Cancun, Me...