Seaweed is an important part of marine life. However, the amount of algae has increased drastically for more than ten years.
The island nations of the Caribbean Sea and Florida in the US are suffering from a rapidly worsening algae problem. It is caused by the sargassum normally present in the Sargasso Sea, the amount of which has increased rapidly in recent years.
Algae is a very important part of the Sargasso Sea biome. The area has become accustomed to the regularly appearing algae. Algae has always pushed with the waves onto beaches and harbors.
The amount of algae has been increasing at least since 2011. Now there has been so much algae that it is causing real problems on the coasts. For example, on the island of Guadeloupe, it has filled an entire sea bay.
Rotting algae smells strongly and it can also cause health effects (you switch to another service)says a professor at the University of Florida Stephen Leatherman For Newsweek magazine.
– The beaches are narrow and not very wide. It [levä] just cover them up. In Cancún a couple of years ago, it was so bad that the Navy sent 2,000 people with brooms and other tools to clean it up to expose the sand, says producer Leatherman.
Naturalists (you switch to another service)have stated that the growth of algae is caused by an increase in the amount of nutrients that end up in the sea. A particularly large amount of nutrients flows through the Amazon River, says Professor Leatherman.
Brazil’s rainforests are being cut down and replaced by crops or established meat farms. Large amounts of nutrients flow from the farms into the river and through it into the Atlantic. A similar thing happens on the opposite bank of the Atlantic on the Congo River. Ocean currents collect nutrients for algae food in the Caribbean.
Climate change and seawater warming do not directly cause the algae mass to grow. Changes in precipitation and ocean currents can have indirect effects, says a researcher from the University of South Florida Chuanmin Hu For the Guardian magazine (you will switch to another service).