Drought in the Midwest contributed to what has been measured as the fourth smallest “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico since 1985, according to scientists with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This year’s dead zone measures about 2,889 square miles compared with a dead zone of 6,770 [...]
2012 Gulf Hypoxia in Brief Mid-summer forecast: 1,197 to 6,213 square miles June survey result: 295 square miles Mid-summer survey result: 2,889 Mid-Summer Survey Results Results of an annual mid-summer hypoxic zone survey by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium found the fourth smallest dead zone on record in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The LUMCON-led team [...]
The Missouri River stretches more than a quarter-mile from shore to shore here, its muddy water the color of coffee with a shot of cream. The river carved this valley hundreds of thousands of years ago, and in the 1830s, it deposited the German settlers who founded this city. Today, visitors who sip local wine [...]
The importance of the Gulf of Mexico to the US economy is significant. The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science has invested over $66M in public funds for research into harmful algal blooms, nutrient over-enrichment contributions to hypoxia, ecological effects of sea level rise (EESLR), and coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico since 1990. [...]
SOUTH-EAST of New Orleans, where the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico, the North American land mass does not end so much as gently give up. Land subsides to welts of green poking up through the water, and the river grows wider and flatter until it meets the ocean, where a solid line divides [...]
Scientists from Louisiana and Michigan have wildly different predictions for the size of this year’s “dead zone” of low-oxygen water in the Gulf of Mexico. Forecasts released Thursday say it will either be the smallest in nearly a quarter century at just under 1,200 square miles, or five times that big and a bit above [...]
Two Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” forecasts released Thursday could hardly be more staggeringly different. The wide range of the dead zone’s size in the forecases is due to scientists’ use of two different forecast models, and the eventual size of the zone this year could help the scientific community understand which model works best. [...]
2012 Gulf Hypoxia in Brief Forecast: 1,197 to 6,213 square miles Results of preliminary June survey cruise find area to be 295 mi2 August 1: Results of mid-summer survey cruise NOAA Hypoxia Forecast In June 2012 scientists from the National Centers for Coastal Science-funded Northern Gulf of Mexico Ecosystems and Hypoxia Assessment (NGOMEX) program issued a divergent outlook for [...]