Dead Zone Startles Scientists

It is just Gaia getting even with the air polluters :smilewinkgrin:

 

How does the oxygen level drop in water?

 

If someone knew, there would be no 'Startles Scientists'.

 

Sounds like the end is nearer every day.

 

Warm water has less oxygen than cold.

 

I don't know but it's got to be Bush's fault.

 

Here's a pretty good overview of "dead zones" from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_%28ecology%29

In my understanding, "dead zones" often occur because of the artificial fertizers used today. Every year, the "dead zone" along the Louisiana and Upper Texas coast develops during the summer because of the high nitrogen and nutrient-rich runoff that drains from farmland into the Mississippi River and then into the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico circulates counter-clockwise, so the sediment and nutrients moves from the mouth of the Mississippi westward toward Texas. (That's why the water at the beaches in Louisiana and the Upper Texas Coast is so muddy... beaches just to the east of the mouth of the Mississippi have nice clear water.)

So I don't think that "global warming" plays a very large role in this phenomenon.

 

Sounds like it "startles reporters" instead of scientists...

Perhaps it is from the runoff of the Columbia River.

What happens is that nutrients and fertilizer run into the rivers and then the ocean where it creates huge phytoplankton blooms. Then the phytoplankton blooms quickly die and their decomposition consumes all of the oxygen in the water, causing slow-moving animals to run out of oxygen.

This is both a natural and an artificial phenomenon. It happens naturally to a degree, but has been accelerated due to the use of artificial fertilizers.

I learned all about this stuff in my high school oceanography class back over 20 years ago. I don't know why the alleged "scientists" are startled.

 

Its Bush's fault. :laugh: