American scientists estimate the existence of an area in the Gulf of Mexico known as the “dead zone”, the extent to which it could go down in history.
Quoted from Nature World News, the area with low oxygen levels and even no oxygen at all, is expected to grow to nearly 20,300 square kilometers.
Dead zones are believed to form due to nutrient contamination caused by human activities and can kill fish and other marine life. This is worrying, especially for people making a living in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
According to scientists from NOAA, oxygen -deficient water areas off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas that are damaging marine life are larger than usual this summer. This year's zone has been recorded to reach about 16,404 sq km.
Climate change has killed corals. During El Niño 2016, warm water threatened the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) coral reefs. When there is not enough oxygen in the water to support marine life, dead zones form at the bottom of the water body. This is also known as hypoxia, which is caused by the flow of nutrients, mainly due to excessive fertilization of agricultural areas in the spring.
According to a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, pollution has caused losses of USD 2.4 billion per year since 1980, as a result of the destruction of marine ecosystems and fisheries.
Nancy Rabalais, a researcher from Louisiana State University who has been investigating the dead zone for years, says the distribution of low dissolved oxygen this summer is unique.
"The area between the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya River is smaller than the district west of Atchafalaya, which is usually larger. The low -oxygen conditions are very close to the coast, with some observations showing almost total oxygen deficiency," he said.
This summer, the dead zone area is nearly three times larger than the state task force surveillance team predicted in 2001. Environmentalists have long criticized the task force, established in 1997 and run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for failing to meet its objectives. . to suppress the expansion of the dead zone.
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