Ocean Dead Zones Swirl Off Africa, Threatening Coastlines with Mass Fish Kills

[Binkie The Clown]

The world ocean is now a region of expanding oxygen-deprived dead zones.

It’s an upshot of a human-warmed ocean system filled with high nutrient run-off from mass, industrialized farming, rising atmospheric nitrogen levels, and increasing dust from wildfires, dust storms, and industrial aerosol emissions. Warming seas hold less oxygen in solution. And the nutrient seeding feeds giant algae blooms that, when they die and decompose, further rob ocean waters of oxygen. Combined, the two are an extreme hazard to ocean health — symptoms of a dangerous transition to stratified, or worse, Canfield Ocean states.

In total, more than 405 dead zones now occupy mostly coastal waters worldwide. Covering an area of 95,000 square miles and expanding, these anoxic regions threaten marine species directly through suffocation or indirectly through the growth of toxin-producing bacteria which thrive in low-oxygen environments.

Continue reading at Robert Scribbler

[daleanime]

1. kick, kick, kick....

[AuntPatsy]

2. Kick

[chervilant]

3. We're decimating the flora and fauna of this planet,

and our extinction event cannot come quickly enough...

(The ginormous garbage piles in our oceans are yet another cause for concern...)

[Nihil]

4. Also see ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112784978