The Sea

6 Million Tons Of Seaweed Showing Up On Florida Beaches

Massive amounts of seaweed washing up on southern shores

What’s Happening?

Threatening to cover Caribbean islands and Florida beaches in foul-smelling mounds of decomposing brown sludge, a 5,000-mile-long blob of seaweed that weighs an estimated 6.1 million tons is threatening to block the world’s oceans. The brown seaweed known scientifically as sargassum, which is frequently found strewn across South Florida beaches, might begin to accumulate in the Florida Keys in the coming days. Miami Beach is anticipated to become a popular destination later in the sargassum season, which lasts from March to October.

The sargassum bloom this year appears to be one of the largest ever observed. Since 2011, a series of extremely huge seaweed blobs have been produced as a result of human activities and climate change. The largest blob ever has been broken every year for the past five years.

Why is it a problem?

Seaweed is safe in and of itself. However, it does contain sea slugs, jellyfish, and other venomous marine creatures. Sargassum can give people headaches when it comes ashore in large amounts. It soon rots in the Florida sun and has a terrible odor, which keeps tourists away. Hydrogen sulfide gas released by decomposing seaweed gives off a rotten egg smell that can be harmful to locals with respiratory conditions. The juvenile turtles that generally hatch on the beaches between August and October might also be smothered by thick seaweed deposits.

Seaweed is very expensive to handle. The removal of seaweed piles costs Miami-Dade County millions of dollars a year. Sargassum is either hauled off in truckloads to landfills or broken up and mixed into the sand.

https:// www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/15/sargassum-seaweed-bloom-florida-beaches/

https:// www.newsweek.com/huge-seaweed-bloom-heading-toward-florida-algae-1787372

https:// nypost.com/2023/03/19/massive-seaweed-bloom-starts-washing-ashore-florida-beaches/

https:// abcnews.go.com/US/massive-seaweed-bloom-headed-florida-mystery-scientists/story?id=97863288

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