Sentences with phrase «hypoxic zone»
A "hypoxic zone" refers to an area in a body of water, typically a lake or ocean, where there is very little oxygen available for the aquatic organisms to survive. It is often caused by excessive amounts of pollutants or nutrients entering the water, which leads to excessive algae growth. As the algae dies and decomposes, it consumes oxygen, creating an environment unsuitable for most marine life. Full definition
The Black Sea once hosted one of the largest hypoxic zones in the world, stretching 15,000 square miles.
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The largest hypoxic zone measured to date occurred in 2002 and encompassed more than 8,400 square miles.
Long - term measured size of Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone with 2011 forecast.
Their consumption of oxygen could create hypoxic zones and have «a serious influence on biodiversity at those times as well,»
On June 18, NOAA - sponsored forecast models developed by Donald Scavia, Ph.D., University of Michigan, and R. Eugene Turner, Ph.D., Louisiana State University, predicted the Gulf hypoxic zone would range in size from 7,286 to 8,561 square miles.
The forecasts call for a mid-summer hypoxic zone of 1.46 cubic miles, a mid-summer anoxic zone of 0.26 to 0.38 cubic miles, and a summer average hypoxia of 1.108 cubic miles, all at the low end of previously recorded zones.
However, in order to come close to achieving a reduced target hypoxic zone of 5,000 square kilometers (1930.5 square miles) by 2050, nitrogen levels would have to be brought to zero — a scenario that the researchers note in their paper is «not only considered unrealistic, but also inherently unsustainable.»
According to satellite images, the oil slick overlaps one of the areas where hypoxic zones typically form.
The forecasts from researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Michigan has three parts: a prediction for the mid-summer volume of the low - oxygen hypoxic zone, one for the mid-summer oxygen - free anoxic zone, and a third that is an average value for the entire summer season.
«While there is some uncertainty regarding the size, position and timing of this year's hypoxic zone in the Gulf, the forecast models are in overall agreement that hypoxia will be larger than we have typically seen in recent years.»
No, it has nothing directly to do with the BP oil spill, but it won't help things... Scientists supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have just announced that the northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone — that's the Gulf Dead Zone to you and me, where there's so little oxygen that it doesn't really support life — is likely to be of above average size this summer, though it won't set a new record (phew).
Two surveys conducted in June and early July, one of which was led by a NOAA - supported Texas A&M University team, suggested a large hypoxic zone was forming in the Gulf, though the LUMCON July measurement will be the official one as required of NOAA by the Task Force.
The confirmed size of the 2013 Gulf hypoxic zone will be released in August, following a monitoring survey led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium beginning in late July, and the result will be used to improve future forecasts.
Last year the final mid-summer hypoxic zone was 1.45 cubic miles.
How could we live without the ozone hole and the hypoxic zones?
By 2017, excessive nitrogen from agriculture had created a hypoxic zone in the Gulf extending 22,729 square kilometers (8775.7 square miles)-- an area larger than the state of New Jersey.
When algae die their decomposition consumes oxygen, creating large areas with low oxygen levels, or hypoxic zones.
Kim Van Meter of University of Waterloo explained, «In a hypoxic zone, or dead zone, there is not enough oxygen to support marine life.
Despite those efforts, the hypoxic zone is now three times the size of the task force's initial goals.
Van Meter and her colleagues sought to explore what future targets might be necessary to reduce the hypoxic zone.
The hypoxic zone off the coast of Louisiana and Texas forms each summer threatening the ecosystem supporting valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries that in 2011 had a commercial dockside value of $ 818 million and an estimated 23 million recreational fishing trips.
They are many meters apart from the hypoxic zones down below.
In 2014, sustained winds from Hurricane Arthur mixed Chesapeake Bay waters, delivering oxygen to the bottom and dramatically reducing the size of the hypoxic zone to 0.58 cubic miles.
The Gulf of Mexico's hypoxic zone is predicted to be the largest ever recorded due to extreme flooding of the Mississippi River this spring, according to an annual forecast by a team of NOAA - supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University and the University of Michigan.
Long - term data sets on nutrient loads and the extent of the hypoxic zone have improved forecast models used by management agencies to understand the nutrient reductions required to reduce the size of the hypoxic zone.
The hypoxic zone off the coast of Louisiana and Texas forms each summer and threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries.
The actual size of the 2011 hypoxic zone will be released following a NOAA - supported monitoring survey led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium between July 25 and August 6.
Dysfunctional microbiomes are associated with issues including human chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and asthma; local ecological disruptions such as the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico; and reductions in agricultural productivity.
Also known as the hypoxic zone, the dead...
«The size of the hypoxic zone and nitrogen loading from the river is an unambiguous relationship,» said Turner.
The size of the summer's hypoxic zone is important as a benchmark against which progress in nutrient reductions in the Mississippi River system can be measured.
The Mississippi River / Gulf of Mexico Nutrient Management Task Force supports the goal of reducing the size of the hypoxic zone to less than 5,000 square kilometers, or 1,900 square miles, which will require substantial reductions in nitrogen and phosphorus reaching the Gulf.
This summer's hypoxic zone («dead zone») is one of the largest measured since the team of researchers from Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Louisiana State University began routine mapping in 1985.
This year's hypoxic zone, nearly the size of the state of Massachusetts, is right in the range predicted earlier in the year by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, which does a yearly survey of oxygen levels.
After reviewing the academic literature on «hypoxic zones» in 2012, Robert Diaz, professor emeritus at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary, identified 166 reports of dead zones in the country.
The main reason it is so low is that above the hypoxic zone it is food.
Professor R. Eugene Turner of LSU commented on the possible contribution of the BP oil spill to the dead zone: «The oil spill could enhance the size of the hypoxic zone through the microbial breakdown of oil, which consumes oxygen, but the oil could also limit the growth of the hypoxia - fueling algae.»
The Shell Oil Endowed Chair in Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University Nancy N. Rabalais speaks on a growing concern to the Gulf of Mexico, a hypoxic zone where organisms struggle to -LSB-...]
The largest hypoxic zone currently affecting the United States, and the second largest hypoxic zone worldwide, is the northern Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the Mississippi River.
One of the benefits of constructing these artificial wetlands was thought to be in cleaning and filtering polluted water, including mitigating the effects of excess fertilizer runoff, which has been contributing to hypoxic zones in the ocean.