Tag Archives: toxic algal blooms
Editorial: Florida needs to get its act together to fight Red Tide
The awful smell of dead fish across Tampa Bay cries out for a better response. Red Tide is overwhelming St. Petersburg, and the damage to the fisheries, tourism and public health is increasing with no end in sight. State and local officials need to collaborate on the cleanup. Residents, visitors and businesses need to be kept informed. And Florida needs a better strategy for managing these toxic algal blooms. >click to read< 17:13
Mystery of world’s worst toxic algal blooms solved: Cold water upswells from the deeper ocean
The most deadly algal blooms have extremely high levels of the neurotoxin domoic acid, which causes paralytic food poisoning and in rare cases amnesia or death if people eat contaminated shellfish. Scientists now think they have discovered why such blooms happen. It was previously thought that a pocket of warm water, known as a ‘warm blob’, was to blame. A study in Geophysical Research Letters has now identified that in fact upwelling of cold water from the deep oceans was responsible. click here to read the story 09:31
