Scientists are predicting a record sargassum bloom in 2023. It’s already starting to wash up on beaches in Florida and the Caribbean and cause a stink.
A tornado touches down.
Morgan Schneider/OU CIMMS/NOAA NSSL
The US is a latecomer to offshore wind development, but President Biden has set big goals for expanding it. The Gulf of Mexico has good conditions and a large offshore energy industry.
Satellite photo of an algal bloom in western Lake Erie, July 28, 2015.
NASA Earth Observatory
Donald Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Donald Scavia, University of Michigan
Nutrient pollution fouls lakes and bays with algae, killing fish and threatening public health. Progress curbing it has been slow, mainly because of farm pollution.
An image from satellite data shows the strong Loop Current and swirling eddies.
Christopher Henze, NASA/Ames
Huge blooms of brown seaweed have fouled Florida and Caribbean beaches almost every year over the past decade. They originate in Africa and South America. and are fueled by human activities.
Preparing for a hurricane on North Carolina’s vulnerable Outer Banks.
Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images
New Orleans has about a 40% chance of getting hit by a tropical storm in any given year. Here’s how heat, winds and the shape of the seafloor raise the hurricane damage risk.
Local support might be the most important factor for a successful marine protected area.
Anastasia Quintana
In the design of marine protected areas, new research suggests that it might be better to start small in order to gain local trust and support that leads to larger long-term benefits.
Corn plants in a flooded field near Emden, Ill., May 29, 2019.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
New research shows that one-third of yearly nitrogen runoff from Midwest farms to the Gulf of Mexico occurs during a few heavy rainstorms. New fertilizing schedules could reduce nitrogen pollution.
Smoke billowed from the fire at a chlorine plant in Westlake, Louisiana, after Hurricane Laura moved through on Aug. 27.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
A storm-driven chlorine gas release in a vulnerable community is the type of worst-case scenario that scientists and engineers have warned about for decades.
Pools of floating crude oil at the site of the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, April 27, 2010.
Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images
The Deepwater Horizon disaster set new records for holding polluters to account. But it had much less impact on laws regulating offshore drilling or US oil dependence.
Oil sheen in a Louisiana marsh that was heavily affected by the 2010 BP spill, Sept. 27, 2013.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
The Deepwater Horizon oil disaster catalyzed a decade of research on oil contamination in the Gulf of Mexico, from surface waters to the seabed, with surprising findings.
A satellite image of the oil slick as it looked in late May 2010, a month after the Deepwater Horizon well exploded. The oil plume looks grayish white.
NASA/Goddard/Jen Shoemaker and Stu Snodgrass
Donald Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
The BP Deepwater Horizon blowout on April 20, 2010 triggered the largest offshore oil spill in history. Ten years later, post-spill reforms are being undone and the Gulf of Mexico remains vulnerable.
Charter boat Capt. Dave Spangler holds a sample of algae from Maumee Bay in Lake Erie, Sept. 15, 2017.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File
Scientists are predicting major algae blooms in Lake Erie and large dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico this summer. Nutrient pollution from industrial corn farming is a major driver.
A school of juvenile bocaccio in the midwaters of Platform Gilda, Santa Barbara Channel, Calif.
Scott Gietler
Californians love their coast and strongly oppose offshore drilling. Will they support converting old oil rigs to artificial reefs – a policy that benefits both marine life and oil companies?
Blooms of algae, like this growth in 2015 in Lake St. Clair between Michigan and Ontario, promote the formation of dead zones.
NASA Earth Observatory
Scientists have mapped a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Oman, without enough oxygen in the water to support life. This Speed Read explains why dead zones form in waters around the world.