This is going to be another major year for sargassum, according to a bulletin published by the Optical Oceanography Laboratory of the University of South Florida, and beachgoers can probably already tell.
On Thursday, Chopper6 flew over North Miami Beach and Miami Beach to check out reports of the brown, stinky seaweed that's become infamous on South Florida's coastlines.
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WATCH HEREAnd there it was. Lots and lots of it.
In March, the Optical Oceanography Laboratory wrote that the total amount of sargassum "in the tropical Atlantic as well as for all regions combined reached a new historical record for the same month of March."
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At the time, the amount in the Gulf was "still low," but there were signs that some of this brown macroalgae would be "transported to the Straits of Florida in the coming weeks."
"There is a relatively large amount in offshore waters east of Florida, but the probability of this sargassum reaching the east coast is low because the strong Gulf Stream may serve as a barrier," the bulletin reads.
NBC6 spoke to Dr. Chuanmin Hu, professor of Oceanography at USF’s College of Marine Science on whether those predictions came to pass—and if so, how much worse it could get.
According to Dr. Hu, the sargassum inundation event is more or less what experts expected when reviewing satellite imagery back in January. While it is not a “severe” event, the amount is significant and more could come in May and June, he said.
Why does it matter how much seaweed washes up on the beach?
Well, there's the obvious. It can be an eyesore, and makes going to the beach a little more uncomfortable, and yes, smelly.
"The inundation of large amounts of seaweed onto our coastlines affects recreation, tourism [and] the decay of the sargassum on the coastlines actually can release hydrogen sulfide gas, which is very poisonous. We have to be careful about that, but it's also affecting the local environments as well," Dr. Dennis McGillicuddy, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, says.
Specifically, if the bloom is too large, it could block sunlight and have negative consequences for sea grasses and coral reefs.
"Another direct consequence we see of this in the coastal ocean has to do with animals that use the coastal environment for reproduction," McGillicuddy says. "As you probably know, loggerhead turtles, their preferred nesting environment are beaches. And so we've seen situations when the adults can't get ashore to lay their eggs, and then those that are lucky enough to lay their eggs, the hatchlings have difficulty getting back out into the ocean because of the seaweed barrier that's created by sargassum."
