by Five thousand miles long, 400 miles wide, and weighing over six million tons, a giant algal bloom is heading toward Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.
Scientists from the University of South Florida, with help from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, have tracked the bloom of sargassum, a type of brown algae, using satellites. The bloom, which originated in the Atlantic Ocean, is approaching the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, posing a threat to beaches across the Gulf, including tourist-heavy Florida.
“If you’ve ever been to a beach where there was a tremendous amount of that, it’s not fun,” Dave Tomasco, executive director of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, told ABC News. “It’s rotting, it’s using up the oxygen water, and it smells like rotten eggs.”
When the bloom hits a beach, it can accumulate a meter to two meters high on the shore, scientists say, clogging swimmers’ waterways. If the seaweed is not removed quickly from the beach, it will begin to rot, releasing hydrogen sulfide gas, most commonly associated with the smell of rotten eggs, which can irritate the skin, eyes and throat and make it difficult for sufferers to breathe.
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According to Tomasco, the bloom is harming the tourism industry rather than wildlife by piling up and smelling famous Florida beaches.
Octavio Penaloza, who runs Wings Beachwear in Miami Beach, said the bloom affecting Miami could hurt its bottom line.
“If anything happened to the beach, it would hit us,” he said.
He noted that its busy season spans June and July — the same months when the Sargassum peaks, according to scientists. While his customer base includes tourists who buy souvenirs without visiting the beach, many customers visit his shop for beachwear that would become unnecessary when the beaches become less pleasant.
“[If] When the seaweed comes, fewer people will come to shop at our store because they mainly buy things to go to the beach,” Penaloza said.
For a measurable effect on Florida’s beaches, University of South Florida research professor Brian Barnes said that a concentrated amount of seaweed about the size of a football field must land on a seashore immediately.
“If it’s a large enough airship or blob that hits a specific beach, it can overwhelm the possibilities [of the beach]’ Barnes said.
While six million blooms span two million square miles, they completely cover only about 0.1 percent of the ocean’s surface and are distributed in patches that vary significantly in size, according to Barnes. The bloom will take months to eventually reach land and could increase in size as the water temperature rises; Where it lands also depends on wind and currents, with Barnes warning that Southeast Florida, including Miami and the Florida Keys, are the areas in the United States most likely to be affected.
When and if it does arrive, the Florida Department of Health warns that the hydrogen sulfide from decomposing sargassum will irritate the skin, eyes, throat, and nose. It’s unlikely to be seriously injured in a breezy environment like a beach, but people with asthma could have trouble breathing due to the gas.
Tomasco also noted that the hydrogen sulfide could interact with paint molecules on houses, turning them a gray-silver color and even tarnishing cutlery.
Chuanmin Hu, a University of South Florida professor who works with Barnes to track the bloom, said the amount of seaweed flocking to shore is not a cause for alarm, stressing that sargassum is natural and not toxic to that life is in the ocean.
Hu said this amount of algae is the “new normal” for the Atlantic Ocean; However, the current algal mass set the record for the largest sargassum bloom recorded in January, although it decreased in size in February.
“At least it will be one of the most important Sargassum years, although we don’t know if it will be a record year or not,” Hu said, noting that the size of the bloom peaks in June and July.
Compared to the red tide, a toxic algal bloom that has wreaked havoc on Florida’s Gulf Coast for the past decade, killing marine life and even manatees, sargassum is not harmful to wildlife under most conditions. Hu said some animals, including sea turtles, fish, crabs and shrimp, may feed or shelter in the flowers.
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However, Tomasco warned that sargassum on beaches could disrupt sea turtle nesting habitats. Hu also noted that if sargassum sinks compactly to the seafloor, it could suffocate and kill coral and seagrass.
“They sink to the seabed and smother things,” Hu said, noting that most of the bloom will likely end up on the seabed rather than the beach.
While the blooms are the “new normal” compared to recent years, Barnes noted that they were “unheard of” prior to 2011, characterizing their sudden appearance as a mystery.
“Prior to 2011, any type of bloom of any relative size is unknown,” Barnes said. “For example, we have never seen such a flower; There are no reports of huge strandings or anything like that in the Caribbean.”
While Hu said there’s no direct evidence linking the blooms to climate change, Tomasco pointed to the nature of sargassum — including the fact that it grows larger in warmer waters — as an indication of why has reappeared.
“The world is changing, and part of that is that the oceans are getting warmer, and algae seem to be able to grow over a longer stretch of the calendar than they used to,” Tomasco said.
Tomasco also pointed to the increased use of fertilizers in agriculture and landscaping in Florida, which is draining into the Gulf and promoting algae growth. Hu clarified that the fertilizer would affect the algae if they enter the Gulf of Mexico near shore, and not if the sargassum originally grows in the Atlantic.
Regardless of the reason for the growth, all three scientists are clear that coastal communities will learn to cope with the new normal of these algae.
“I don’t see anything to suggest it’s trending anywhere but up,” Barnes said.
Massive algal bloom toward Florida is a mystery to scientists originally appearing on abcnews.go.com
