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Record Amount of Seaweed Chokes Caribbean Beaches and Shoreline (latimes.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the troubling-development dept.
Bruce66423 writes: 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, which noted it as "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 that it was 20% higher than the previous record set in May 2018. Hu compiled additional data for the Associated Press that showed sargassum levels for the eastern Caribbean at a near record high this year, second only to those reported in July 2018. Levels in the northern Caribbean are at their third-highest, following July 2018 and July 2021, he said.
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Record Amount of Seaweed Chokes Caribbean Beaches and Shoreline More

Record Amount of Seaweed Chokes Caribbean Beaches and Shoreline

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  • to mix it all together and wash it out to sea.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      A hurricane is likely to dump more on the beaches...you know, tides, winds, etc.

      • Yeah but you could nuke the hurricane and that'd burn up the seaweed. The famous meteorologist Prof.D.John Trump suggested this a few years ago, don't see why it wouldn't still work today.

  • Record amounts of seaweed growing probably means record amounts of seaweed sinking to the bottom of the ocean where it can be effectively sequestered. Perhaps this is just Mother Nature's way of dealing with high carbon dioxide levels. I might feel differently if I was headed to a Caribbean beach any time soon, but this seems like good news.

    • I like your way of looking at things.

      Of course, this is a story about one specific species in one specific area, at one specific time. It tells us nothing about the average amount of seaweed, globally, or the amount for the year in that area, or algae or anything else.

      My area is in a significant drought for the last couple of months. So it's dry and mumble mumble whatever about climate and drought. Several neighboring states, including areas only 100 miles or so away, have the opposite - too much rain in th

      • My area is in a significant drought for the last couple of months. So it's dry and mumble mumble whatever about climate and drought. Several neighboring states, including areas only 100 miles or so away, have the opposite - too much rain in the last couple of months, leading to flooding. Mumble mumble whatever about climate and lots of rain. Those same areas, while flooded, still haven't received enough rain to actually end the drought the started three years ago. So reverse that mumble?

        I assume you're old enough to remember when it was called "global warming" and that didn't go well because anyone who lives in a place with winter would think "geeze, I wish the globe would warm enough to melt this snow"...plus EVERY FUCKING DIPSHIT on the planet made the stupid joke "Global Warming, huh?"...whenever there was a blizzard. However, what was worse is the number of stupid people I personally knew who would think "I don't need to think about the climate because they said it was warming, but I

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Our local reservoir is getting low, but fortunately is far from being at risk, but the water definitely tastes different (not in a good way) and we're having to "waste" quite a bit of water keeping plants alive so we don't get massive erosion whenever it does decide to rain. I purposely chose drought resistant plants because I don't want to deal with watering them...and this heatwave/drought has been even too much for plants that normally grow in the middle-east.

          And yet there are places stupid enough to de

        • > So yeah..."mubling" may not be a bad idea. I couldn't tell if you were trying to downplay the problem or not..

          I see I wasn't as crystal clear as I could have been. Let me try to be very clear:

          Saying some random shit about global warming based on the weather in Dallas this month, or last month, is stupid.

          You can tell it's stupid because there's been exactly the opposite weather just 100 miles or so north, as well as east and west of Dallas. So if you had said "global warming is making the midwest dry t

          • From just casual observation it seems everything west of the Mississippi river is experiencing drought. Meanwhile east of it we are getting torrential storms and our average humidity makes it feel like you are swimming in air.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by smooth wombat ( 796938 )
              Meanwhile east of it we are getting torrential storms and our average humidity makes it feel like you are swimming in air.

              Only Kentucky is getting inundated with rain, and those inbred hicks deserve every inch they get.

              Now go on and mod me down. Anyone who keeps re-electing that millionaire Mitch McConnell and claims Republicans will make things right while having one of the poorest states in the nation deserves what they get.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by dfm3 ( 830843 )
                You do realize that dozens of people died in the floods, right? You really think they deserved that, just because a majority of their fellow citizens happened to vote for a certain person? I'm no fan of McConnell, but I think that judgement is a bit harsh.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dfm3 ( 830843 )
            First, nobody uses the term "global warming" anymore. It's called climate change*.

            Second, you're the one who brought the strawman of climate change into this discussion in the first place. I read through the entire article, and the only reference I could find is this:

            Scientists say more research is needed to determine why sargassum levels in the region are reaching new highs, but the United Nations’ Caribbean Environment Program says possible factors include a rise in water temperatures as a result of climate change and nitrogen-laden fertilizers and sewage waste fueling algae blooms.

            So yes, they're speculating about a possible cause (or causes) for a phenomenon that is impacting a fairly large region, not just "one particular place, for one particular week", and in half a sentence they speculate that climate change might

            • > * There were two primary reasons for this terminology change. One is that climate change causes weather events to be more extreme, meaning not just higher temps, but sometimes lower, or more rain in some areas, with worse droughts in others.

              Yep, if it rains - that's because of climate change!
              If it doesn't rain - that's because of climate change!
              If it's warm - that's because of climate change!
              If dumping thousands of tons of fertilizer into the bay encourages algae growth - that's because of climate chan

    • Record amounts of seaweed growing probably means record amounts of seaweed sinking to the bottom of the ocean where it can be effectively sequestered. Perhaps this is just Mother Nature's way of dealing with high carbon dioxide levels. I might feel differently if I was headed to a Caribbean beach any time soon, but this seems like good news.

      It's mainly over fertilizing leakage that causes it and when it sinks it rotts and consumes the oxygen creating dead zones. But if you're not going swimming in the Carribean, Gulf of Maine, Texas, Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie, Green Bay, Okeechobee Waterway, Baltic Sea or the Coastal seas of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan you're probably not directly affected. Even if you were the neurotoxins produced by some of these algae are really only dangerous to children and pregnant women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wik [wikipedia.org]

  • Being on a beach does not automatically mean it will be a nice day. Everything has ups and downs, including resort vacation destinations, and the cycles are much shorter and more frequent than the occasional media coverage would suggest to the outside observer.

  • So what they're saying is: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drn8 ( 883816 ) on Thursday August 04, 2022 @03:06PM (#62762638)

    A record amount of CO2 is being captured and removed from the acidifying ocean.

    This is adversely affecting the high carbon Caribbean tourism industry, which is an added bonus.

    FTFA:
    the seaweed invasion has forced some resorts to close for up to five months in the past.

    • A record amount of CO2 is being captured and removed from the acidifying ocean.

      If the seaweed is being dumped in landfills then that CO2 will make its way back into the atmosphere in short order.

    • Seaweed is not a good form of CO2 capture. All of the world's seaweed put together won't even cover a small fraction of any given 1st world country's emissions. Seeing things like this is bad. It is showing things are out of balance and that far outweighs any minute amount of CO2 this would be making a difference with.

  • Harvest it? (Score:3)

    by flightmaker ( 1844046 ) on Thursday August 04, 2022 @03:15PM (#62762664)

    Spread it on land for fertiliser? Wouldn't be the first time.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Arethan ( 223197 )

      easier to take pictures of it and write articles about it, hoping to sell eyeballs to advertising

    • Spread it on land for fertiliser? Wouldn't be the first time.

      I don't know what species causes this in the Caribbean but around here it's caused by algae that also produces neurotoxins.

    • I have read that cows and perhaps other livestock animals emit a dangerous amount of methane as a digestive gas and seaweed fed to them substantially diminishes their methane output, Would this seaweed be useful to cut down livestock methane output?

  • Clearly they canâ(TM)t see the bigger picture (Score:3)

    by nbritton ( 823086 ) on Thursday August 04, 2022 @03:56PM (#62762816)

    In other news, Mother Nature provided them with free bio-fuel, but all that they knew how to do was bitch about it.

  • Gather and sell it! (Score:3)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Thursday August 04, 2022 @05:18PM (#62763096)

    IIRC, seaweed is a fantastic additive to cow feed to reduce their methane output. https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

  • Or collect it for the Florida manatee

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