Dead Zones: A Threat to Aquatic Life

Scientists and politicians have been spending funds on the alleged climate change phenomenon, formerly called “global warming” by alarmists like Al Gore, a politician with no degree in science, but has made money, a documentary film award, and Nobel Prize for his effort. Gore and several financiers have also made plans on how to make money on the scientific consensus. The mainstream media has been a willing accomplice in the fleecing program.

Climate has its fluctuations, as history reveals in recurring ice ages and warming periods. But those same alarmists would have the people believe, and too many do, that politicians and scientists they ensure funding, can solve the problem with a political campaign and draconian legislation that does nothing but suck up funds in an already alarming deficit.

The media, those politicians and their accomplice “scientists” have downplayed a dangerous factor on the oceans (and some freshwater lakes) called dead zones.

I am not referring to the 1983 film based upon Stephen King's novel, The Dead Zone; but a real-life dangerous situation caused by human pollution.

A Dead Zone in oceans and large lakes is caused by:

...excessive nutrient pollution from human activities coupled with other factors that deplete the oxygen required to support most marine life in bottom and near-bottom water. (NOAA).

The following global map reveals the dead zones worldwide. Red circles show location and size of many dead zones. Black dots show dead zones of unknown size. Dead zones have grown rapidly in the last 50 years. [NASA Earth Observatory]

Click to Enlarge

The phenomenon began to be researched by oceanographers in the 1970s. Dead zones occur near inhabited coastlines where aquatic life is concentrated the most. In March of 2004, the United Nations Environment Programme published a Global Environment Outlook Year Book that reported 146 dead zones in the world's oceans where marine life was dying because of depleted oxygen levels. In 2008, a study counted 405 dead zones globally.

Chemical nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus reach levels where increases the level of natural protoplankon, which results in what is called an algal bloom. This has led to the ban of phosphates in detergents, and as Dr. David Schindler, limnologist, warned in 2008:

The fish-killing blooms that devastated the Great Lakes in the 1960s and 1970s haven't gone away; they've moved west into an arid world in which people, industry, and agriculture are increasingly taxing the quality of what little freshwater there is to be had here....This isn't just a prairie problem. Global expansion of dead zones caused by algal blooms is rising rapidly...

Cyanobacteria, one of the major groups of algae, is not good food for zooplankton and fish, so it accumulates in water, dies, then decomposes. The Red Sea – the place of the historic crossing referred to in the Books of Moses and Old Testament in the Bible, which got its name from reddish blooms of Oscillatoria. African flamingos get their pink color from eating Spirulina. Cyanobacteria has also been called the blue-green algae. It is harmful for human consumption as well, according to the CDC.

The most notable dead zones in the United States is in the northern Gulf of Mexico, the outfall of the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, and the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest. According to an oceanographic journal, changes in ocean circulation and climate changes can magnify oxygen reduction in oceans.

In recent history, phosphorus (and farming nutrient runoff) has caused dead zones in Lake Erie, and in September of 2014, it was reported that it was heading towards Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Wherever dead zone appears, it affects aquatic life, which means it also affects the fishing industry. It has been caused by a runoff from farms using manure and nitrogen fertilizers. As an avid angler and one who enjoys seafood, this is disturbing; and the more serious aspect is that it could reach proportions where freshwater lakes and oceans could be like the Dead Sea.

In August of 2014, EarthSky reported that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone has grown to 5,052 square miles. Scientists have tracked that dead zone since 1985 and efforts to reduce nutrient runoff from the Mississippi River has proven helpful to a degree. So, why is the dead zone growing? Although remnants of the Gulf oil spill remain, it is not the cause of the dead zone; although the long-term environmental impact has not been determined. Ocean Today presents a video reporting on the problem, which is the following video.

The following video was produced in 2013 by NOAA: