An enormous stretch of seaweed measuring 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers) wide is set to bring stench, pests, and bacteria to the beaches of Florida and Mexico.
of brown algae that stretches from the coast of West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. It is the largest seaweed bloom in the world – weighing approximately 20 million tons – and is visible from outer space.
It's important to note that seaweed is usually fairly innocuous and actually has benefits like providing habitats for fish and absorbing carbon dioxide. But that's when it's out in the open ocean. Because once the seaweed reaches shore,"the [blooms] degrade water quality, they smell bad, they attract insects and bacteria, they chase away tourists. It's a bad impact on the economy," Chuanmin Hu, professor of oceanography at the University of Miami who leads a team to monitor and track sargassum blooms using satellites, told Insider.The algae can also destroy coastal ecosystems, suffocate coral, harm wildlife, threaten infrastructure, and decrease air quality.
"Increasing sargassum blooms are good for the ocean ecosystem, but pretty bad for some local residents," Hu said.There are hundreds of different species of sargassum. Some of those that populate the Atlantic Ocean grow on the surface of the water, since they don't form roots to attach themselves to rocks like other algae.
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