Images of the 2011 tsunami did not look as I had expected, and pointed to the sublime, when experience exceeds our frameworks of understanding. My exhibit ‘Salients’ treats this theme.
Children participate in a water fight in Lake Ontario in Mississauga, Ontario, during a heat wave on June 5, 2021.
Zou Zheng/Xinhua via Getty Images
Warmer waters, heavier storms and nutrient pollution are a triple threat to Great Lakes cities’ drinking water. The solution: Cutting nutrient releases and installing systems to filter runoff.
Algae cover the surface of the Caloosahatchee River at the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam, July 12, 2018, in Alva, Florida.
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Red tide and a blue-green algae outbreak are fouling hundreds of miles of coast, killing fish and driving tourists away from beaches. Some of the causes are natural, but human actions play a big role.
Detail from a satellite photo of Lake Okeechobee’s algae bloom and the St. Lucie canal into which water was released. Rising water levels from heavy winter rains had water managers worried that water would breach the dike.
NASA
Toxic algae blooms like the intense one now fouling Florida’s waterways harm wildlife and people in various ways. They’re also on the rise.
A mass proliferation of Noctiluca scintillans, a red tide forming dinoflagellate at Clovelly Beach, NSW. It can form dense aggregations that deplete oxygen and produce ammonia.
Gurjeet Kohli
They give us part of the air we breathe but microscopic phytoplankton can also be toxic. They are also on the move thanks to climate change so a new Australian database hopes to monitor any changes.
Algae overload: Lake Erie algal bloom 2011.
NOAA/NASA
The same conditions – ultimately tied to nutrient runoff – that created the damaging toxic blooms and dead zones in US waterways of recent years are forecast to return this year.