Funding Progress and Blooms

With 30% left to go, I hope to raise the necessary funds within the next 5 days. I'd like to thank everyone for their support and donations thus far. Please be sure to share on social media and elsewhere with your family and friends!

Sargassum in its ideal stage is typically found in the open ocean where most people will not see it. The majority of interaction people have with Sargassum is when it washes up on beaches, seemingly ruining their vacation spot. In fact, large blooms of Sargassum can have significant negative impacts on tourist seasons. In 2011, a massive bloom occurred in the Southern Caribbean for as yet unknown reasons. The nearly 200-fold increase from the area's eight year average extended across the Atlantic from Western Africa to Trinidad and the Dominican Republic. Never in living memory had such large blooms been recorded and the impacts on the region were widespread. The Caribbean especially experienced a significant impact to their tourism industry while Sargassum blooms extendeding kilometers offshore clogged up fishing nets in Ghana and preventing the passage of small boats.

 

(c) Discovery Bay Marine Lab, Jamaica

The devastating impact this bloom had on the entire Northern Atlantic confirms the need for widespread coverage of future blooms. One such project is the Sargassum Early Advisory System forecast which uses satellite data to track Sargassum blooms and can be used as an early warning system for coastal communities.