Sargassum Used To Wash Ashore In Mexico For 2-3 Weeks; Now It's Six Months Every Year
It is the biggest algae bloom in the world: Massive waves of seaweed called sargassum washing up on shore day after day. Jose Escalante, who has owned a small hotel in Tulum, Mexico, for eight years, said seaweed, which had been cleaned from the beach that day, will again cover the shoreline in a couple of hours. Every day workers here in Tulum, and up and down the Yucatan Peninsula, remove tons and tons of decomposing sargassum from beaches. And every night it comes back.
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Rosa Rodríguez-Martínez, from Mexico's National University, is trying to figure out why. She said sargassum used to wash ashore for two or three weeks during the summer. Now? "We are getting sargassum almost from March to October," she told "CBS This Morning" co-host Jeff Glor. "So basically, more than half of the year we are receiving massive amounts." "That's a huge difference," said Glor. "It's impressive," she said. "It's a problem. Economical problem, ecological, and probably a human health problem also."
Since 2011 the amount of sargassum in the Atlantic has increased dramatically. It currently forms a 5,000-mile mass from Africa to the Caribbean. It is estimated to weigh 22 million tons.
Why is it so bad right now? "I think it's because we have polluted the sea too much," said Rodríguez-Martínez. "So, now we have a lot of nutrients [in the ocean], and the algae are taking advantage of it." Fertilizer run-off from Brazil, increased by deforestation, is believed to be the largest fuel source for the sargassum. That, combined with warming ocean water and changing ocean currents, has put the Yucatan squarely in the crosshairs.
EDIT
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/massive-waves-of-toxic-seaweed-sargassum-inundate-yucatan-shorelines/
