A massive collection of seaweed that has grown in the Atlantic Ocean is making its way toward Florida's coast and other Gulf of Mexico coastlines, where it could deposit smelly and potentially deadly masses over beaches and significantly reduce the summer travel season.
Sargassum, a type of seaweed, has long created substantial blooms in the Atlantic, and scientists have been monitoring enormous accumulations since 2011. But, the sargassum mass this year, which stretches more than 5,000 miles from the coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico, may be the biggest on record.
Dr. Brian Lapointe, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, predicts that the seaweed will start to be visible on Florida beaches around July as the blob, which is currently moving west, passes through the Caribbean and up into the Gulf of Mexico this summer.
The sargassum bloom this year, according to Lapointe, started to emerge early and doubled in size between December and January. Lapointe told CNN's Rosemary Church that the mass "was greater in January than it has ever been since this new zone of sargassum growth began in 2011".
The sargassum bloom this year, according to Lapointe, started to emerge early and doubled in size between December and January. Lapointe told CNN's Rosemary Church that the mass "was greater in January than it has ever been since this new zone of sargassum growth began in 2011".
In the Caribbean region, where sand piles up on beaches up to 5 or 6 feet deep, Lapointe said that this is an altogether new oceanographic occurrence that is causing a disastrous problem for tourists.
In order to make the beaches in Barbados appropriate for tourists and beach recreation, he stated that inhabitants there were utilizing "1,600 dump trucks a day to scrub the beaches of this seaweed."
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