Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' predicted to reach record size
Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' predicted to reach record size
Jun. 20, 2013 10:45 PM
Environmental biologists foresee a record-size “dead zone” for the Gulf of Mexico this summer, a New Jersey-sized patch of water deadly to marine life, federal officials announced this week.
Seen every year off the Texas and Louisiana coasts, the zone forms largely because of fertilizer runoff from the corn belt flowing down the Mississippi, where the nutrients spur the growth of algal blooms that remove oxygen from the water in the Gulf. The especially large size this year of the predicted zone, perhaps 8,500 square miles, appears to be tied to Midwestern floods that washed more nutrients into the river.
“The estimate is this will be the largest zone ever, unless there is a storm that stirs up the water,” says researcher R. Eugene Turner of Louisiana State University, who was one of the modelers on which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies based their prediction. “Even if there is a storm it is going to be a very large zone,” Turner says.
Records have been kept on the summer dead zone since 1985. Last year’s zone was one of the smallest on record, as a drought prevented runoff carrying as much fertilizer into the Mississippi River.
More:
http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20130621/NEWS01/306210025?nclick_check=1
[center]
Into the Dead Zone
http://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/sept2012/deadzone.htm
[/center]
= new reply since forum marked as read
