![]() ![]() ![]() “The action plan to reduce the size of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone has been in place for over two decades, but each year the size of the dead zone varies around the long-term average (of 5,364 square miles). It also added a new goal to reduce the amount of phosphorus and nitrates in the river by 20% by 2025. But by 2016, it was clear that efforts to get Midwest farmers to reduce their fertilizer use was not working, and the task force pushed the goal date back to 2035. In 2001, the task force called for that goal to be met by 2015. If this year’s estimate is accurate, the dead zone would still be more than two times bigger than a goal set by a task force of federal agencies and states along the river to reduce its size to a five-year average of no more than 1,900 square miles (4.920 square kilometers) by 2035. ![]() This is the sixth year NOAA has produced its own dead zone forecast, using models jointly developed by the agency and by researchers at LSU, University of Michigan, the College of William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, North Carolina State University and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. But Rabalais said the smaller flow of freshwater this year means there’s a good chance more oxygen will mix from the atmosphere through the thinner freshwater layer into the lower, saltier water, meaning less hypoxia. ![]()
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