THE PERFECT STORM

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY NICOLE WEBSTER

As sargassum continues to grow in the open ocean, so does its popularity amongst humans. Once it began washing up on beaches in mass quantities, humans began to open their eyes to a seaweed species that has been floating, unassumingly, in the open ocean for centuries.

Sargassum, first and foremost, is an algae. A seaweed. There are more than 250 different species of sargassum, but only two of those live their entire lives floating in the ocean. It is these two, sargassum natans and sargassum fluitans, that are multiplying by the tons, washing up along coastlines, and causing all the ruckus.

Biological enigma

Prior to 2011, sargassum was not a well-known species of seaweed. It had its place in some culinary dishes and traditional medicines, but many people would never be able to identify it from a photo.

The Sargasso Sea, a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four gyres and has no land, only floating masses of sargassum, has been known to scientists since Christopher Columbus documented it. However, little had ever been studied on a species that reproduces asexually yet on a seasonal cycle and lives its entire life floating in the open ocean, attached to nothing. A biological enigma.

Everything changed in 2011. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB) emerged seemingly out of nowhere, extending from West Africa to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.

Not bounded by gyres, the sargassum from the GASB is at the mercy of the wild winds, currents, and tides of the ocean. It did not take long for the ocean to push and pull the sargassum onto shores.

Using data collected between 2000-2015 by satellites already in orbit, a team led by Mengqiu Wang and Chuanmin Hu from the University of South Florida confirmed the GASB was not there prior to 2011, and has continued to grow since.