Red Tide

You may have heard of phytoplankton before. The stuff in the oceans that produce somewhere around fifty to eighty percent of the oxygen we breathe. Right? So, you might think here, that’s the good stuff. Because, obviously. And to a proper extent, it is. HABs, or harmful algal blooms, caused by algae that are capable of photosynthesising, which counts as a good thing, ends up killing more than 790 tons of fish, sealife, oh and the occasional manatee, in the span of a few weeks In florida, during the time we were still enjoying Summer Break. Guess what? This wildlife disaster? It happens every year in Florida, and although it’s supposed to be a natural disaster, like tropical storms, for instance, humans have definitely made matters worse.

Just to specify, I’m talking about HABs.

To jump straight into point, I’m just going to say that HABs, also called red tides, because, you know, water becomes red. But, well, not always red.(project colors of red tides to screen) If a very high concentration of algae is in a single area, algae that photosynthesise, which would probably need a way to harness light for energy using pigments, which, as a side effect, discolors the water.

When you think HABs, you also might think about the gulf of Mexico dead zone, but that’s a whole other problem caused by -how do you say it?- cyanobacteria. So let’s just not think about it now. The HABs we are talking about right now, are caused by the algae Karenia Brevis, or K. brevis, also most commonly found in -just like cyanobacteria- -and yes, I’m mentioning it again- the gulf of mexico. Or as you might know from the entire memorization of the world map, or just common sense, by looking at the map right over here(projects map into screen), Florida, as you might have gathered, has an entire coast exposed to the gulf of Mexico. The same Florida gulf coast that gets seriously hit by HABs every year. HABs that kill thousands of fish, at least a hundred manatees, dolphins, and sea turtles, and even a whale shark, all dead from the neurotoxins that the tiny plankton karenia brevis makes.

Guess what? Those toxins… (3 second pause)wait a sec. Before we get into that stuff, Let’s back up a bit and then start from the beginning.

So, why Florida anyway? Why not South Korea? Why not Canada? Why not the entire continent of America? But then, the world just doesn’t work that way.

If I were to name the top two places that get ravaged by photosynthesising plankton, my answer would obviously be the gulf of Mexico dead zone, seriously, that bloom has been there since 1985, and, the gulf coast of Florida. It turns out, that the gulf of Mexico, not just the florida coast, harbors concentrations of Karenia brevis everywhere, just in low amounts. And guess what? Those killer algae, are actually beneficial to the food chain, providing food from the very bottom. Mark this as the ‘good thing’ I mentioned before. And like all living things, those algae need Nitrogen to grow. I don’t mean the nitrogen in air. K. Brevis can’t use that sort of Nitrogen. Luckily for the entire marine microbial community, there is, however, an organism that can fix the useless air-nitrogen into usable nutrient Nitrogen.(very complicated chemical process) The bacteria has a supercomplicated name, trichodesmium, and that kind of cyanobacteria, is thriving in the gulf of mexico, providing enough nutrients for the algae Karenia brevis to grow out of hand. Unlike a lot of other organisms, K.brevis has the ability to use both organic and inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus, giving them a huge energy boost on the way to forming a bloom. Think about it. When nutrients are scarce, other cells can’t compete with K.brevis that has more ways to earn nutrients then them. This happens way off shore, no way near Florida, and these blooms are so minor that they don’t even discolor the water, let alone produce enough toxins to kill stuff. But then, how do these ‘minor blooms’ ravage coasts for months? The answer is simple. The blooms move. If it was pure luck that the K.brevis blooms formed near coasts to bloom out of hand, we wouldn’t have any major problems due to HABs. Karenia brevis is a kind of plankton, free floating, and impossible to move on it’s own. But wait. Instead of moving on its own, these teeny blooms travel with the currents, more specifically, the gulf of mexico loop current. (project map with gulf of mexico loop current to screen) this current takes all of the k. Brevis blooms straight to the nutrient rich waters of the gulf coast of Florida.

And the nutrient rich waters feed the algae, letting them bloom to catastrophic levels, making them last for unimaginable timelines,-the worst one yet lasting over seventeen months- wiping out beaches.

So now, what makes the water near the coast so nutrient rich that algae has chances to thrive so much that they have the ability to commit genocide?

This answer is even simpler than the one before. Humans. We have managed to mess up every last part of this world, literally tearing up the surface of the planet, slowly making it uninhabitable, something that should’ve been a literally impossible feat for just one species in over 8.7 million. Even dinosaurs haven’t figured out how to poison the entire atmosphere, let alone the largest body of water this planet has to offer.

This destructive species is currently feeding the small blooms that wash near the shore, giving it the means to commit marine genocide with the simple ways of farming.

Florida is a worldwide destination for tourists. This causes a whole lot of things, which we are going to explore right now. I guess that the two most important parts of florida tourism are farming, and the beaches. Right now, let’s look a bit more into farming. Farms use lots of fertilizer, and are at places with nutrient rich soil, all of which wash out to the ocean during the rainy season. There, the tiny blooms that wash up feed on the nutrient waste, blooming into not so small anymore catastrophes. The rainy season hits it’s peak at august, with the red tide peak comes right after the peak of the rainy season. A similar patten has been observed in the gulf of mexico, where the dead zone grew after the rainy season washed a lot of nutriens out to sea.

Florida is a state that relies heavily on agriculture and tourism. Most of the florida economy comes from agriculture and tourism.

Due to it’s location near the equator, the temperature of florida is exceptionally warm, the monthly average temp never going below 0 degrees celsius, ranking it as the warmest state of the US year round. Florida’s warm temperature gives it the ideal climate to grow crops such as citrus fruits. Crops that prefer warmer climates like sugar canes have ideal growing environments in florida. Florida isn’t only warm, but also has a diverse range of climate regions from the cooler tallahasse to key west, the southernmost tip of florida, letting many kinds of crops grow, such as strawberries, sugar cane, citrus fruits, watermelons, corn, cucumbers, and more. In 2019, florida had 57 percent of all citrus farms in the entire united states, and has 9.7 million acres of farmland in total.

Also, agriculture is a major consumer of water. Most of the water are mainly surface and groundwater, all fed mostly by rainfall from the rainy season. Not all regions have lots of rain that supply enough water for fertile soil like florida. Changes in air pressure and warm and cold winds blowing from the north and south creates rainy seasons in mid summer, providing lots of water for agriculture.

So to sum it all up, red tides bloom way off shore, gets washed to the florida gulf coast by the gulf of mexico loop current, and those teeny red tide blooms wash up to shore and gourges itself on nutrient rich waters of the coast, fed by farms. The same farms that the floridian economy heavily relies on. A lot of the nutrients are washed out by the rainy season. The same rainy season that the floridian agricultural industry depends on for water, or irrigation. But it’s not the rainy season itself that feeds the Kareina brevis blooms. It’s the fertilizer and animal waste from the agricultural industry that eventually finds it’s way out to sea. Without fertilizer, no matter how rich floridian soil is, will not be enough to support the ever growing florida population, or export as much goods for the economy. Humans rely heavily on the rainy season and rich florida soil for agriculture. Humans can’t just get rid of agriculture or stop the rainy season in a struggle to get rid of the annual red tides that plague florida coasts.

Florida has the ideal land and climate for agriculture. So, you may ask, why is florida soil so rich? Florida isn’t located near tectonic plates like Japan and thus has no volcanoes. Volcanoes contribute greatly to the richness of the soil, and provide lots and lots of minerals. But then, because of florida’s location, it doesn’t have any, but has a lot of rich soil. It doesn’t have deserts, or poor soil. That would mean it has another factor that makes the soil richer. It’s because there are lots of forests that prevent soil erosion(we learned about this with west africa, where deforestation makes the soil erode away and make it poorer.) and the rainy season. Some of the factors of soil formation are lots of rain, and warm temperatures. Florida’s rainy season hits right in the hottest months, where the temperature is hot as it gets, and rain levels peak. This promotes weathering, a positive process that helps plants access nutrients, and to replenish them year after year. You might think that this makes soil acidic, because in long term, the rain carries away minerals that foster neutral or alkaline material, and leaves more acidic ones. And it’s true to an extent. The PH lev of florida soil is 6.1, which is slightly acidic, but can vary from the originating material of the soil, and is still good for agriculture. In 2019, the value of florida’s agricultural industries had 1.6 percent of the total state GDP.

But there’s more the rainy season does. It helps tremendously with agriculture, but has it’s own dark side. The rainy season not only weathers the soil, making it rich, and provide water. It washes all kinds of fertilizers and nutrients out to sea. These nutrients in turn, feeds the tiny algal blooms that floated near the coastline riding the gulf of mexico loop current. And then the red tides bloom to catastrophic levels.

Guess what? That’s not all.

Algae not only feed on fertilizer, which is a byproduct of admittingly a crucial part of florida’s economy and culture, karenia brevis can feed directly on trash, or water pollution sometimes called garbage juice. Yes. The same beach trash that florida never seems to run out of.

The place that’s hit the worst by HABs is the gulf coast of florida, around the tampa region. Which just happens to be one of the most populated areas of florida. Populated by both natives living there, and tourists out for a visit. The population map of florida states that the tampa region is one of the most populated regions. A higher population means more trash and waste. The average floridian generates 8.3 pounds of solid trash every day. The average trash generation level for the average american is 4.4 pounds per day. There are 387,916 people living in florida. That equals 3219702.8 pounds, or 3.2 million pounds of trash per day. The amount of trash people generate is truly astonishing. 13,000 pounds of trash was left over in the beaches in a single week when they reopened after being shut down due to covid.

Recently because of covid, most of florida’s beaches closed, leading to a drastically low amount of trash. But the bad news is that just when florida beaches started to look clean, they opened them back up, because the world kind of got used to covid. And, as a side effect, the amount of trash generated decided to get on a rocket to go to space. In just a five mile stretch in a single beach in the tampa region, cocoa beach, the usual 30 ~50 25 kilogram bags of trash collected skyrocketed to 142 within days. There are always never ending articles about beach trash, trash from tourists, stuff like that. And all of that trash, an estimated 70 percent (not necessarily in florida only) ends up in the ocean eventually. And the trash causes water pollution killing stuff and chasing around trourists directly and indirectly. Indirectly, because unlike a lot of other organisms, Karenia brevis can use this kind of water pollution, or called ‘garbage juice’ directly for nutrients to bloom. People are making a natural disaster into much deadlier monsters single handedly by feeding runoff from our farming, and directly from our trash.

Now, we’re going to talk about what happens as a result of these blooms.

And guess what? Florida’s economy basically runs around tourism. And tourism is one of the things that Red tide shuts down.

Brevetoxins, the toxins karenia produces not only harms fish, but they can hospitalize, or even kill people. These toxins can accumilate(get stored) in shellfish, and you can’t destroy these toxins by cooking them, freezing them, or any other way. And the worst thing about it is that the poisoned shellfish looks like completely normal clams. The only way to find out if it’s been poisoned is by eating them, and trust me when I say that you never want to eat any. Brevetoxins target the central nervous system of animals. This is how it kills fish. This is how you might be affected when you eat a poisoned piece of shellfish. Your nervous system will sort of stop, and you won’t have control over you muscles. This may lead you to be paralyzed from days to weeks, and in the worst cases, the muscles in your chest son’t be in your control, leaving you unable to breathe.

This, has a big impact, not only in your health and environment, but the economy. All the restauratns that serve shellfish in their menus will have to be closed, unable to serve hungry tourists, and worse, shellfish production will be shut down, ridding the jobs many people depend on. Also, waves break open cells of karenia brevis, making the toxins go airborne. With just the right wind conditions, the toxins can travel up to a mile inland, causing mild respiratory syndromes. It’s up to the point where if I start typing stuff about red tides and toxins, there are searches like “Covid, or red tide symptoms?”

And aside from stopping shellfish production, red tides also stop tourists from going to beaches of florida, making it less of an attraction. Not a lot of people want to go to rotten smelling beaches littered with dead fish, and reddish brown water. And aside from personal reasons like that, I mentioned above that karenia toxins can go airborne too. If that happens, there are respiratory symptoms even to people, that are sometimes a minor annoyance, but are still unhealthy if exposed for a prolonged period of time. And to preven that from happening to citizens and tourists, florida has to close beaches so that no one can visit. Florida is a great tourist attraction, and a lot of it’s economy runs on that, but red tides single handedly close beaches, one of the most major-ist destinations that come to mind of florida. It’s even estimated that a single red tide can cause 150 to 250 million dollars worth of damage. Because of human influence that I have stated above, red tides are getting longer and more serious. The longest one yet lasted over seventeen months, over a year before subsiding.

Covid has been a grim news to the entire world, of course including florida. However, less tourists, and less trash because of covid has positively contributed to the red tides. Red tides have gotten less serious after covid came along.

It’s comical, really, how such a nanoparticle can do what humans have failed to do for centuries.

It would be astonishingly stupid if I say the solutions to red tides are to prolong covid and make it worse. Of course that’s not it. Red tides are a completely natural phenomenon that humans had no hand in, just like tropical storms. But humans have made both cases worse.

Climate change is a contributor to red tides too. Tropical storms, as mentioned above, are getting more and more common, and unnatural, and unpredictable weather pattens are getting more and more common. Tropical storms, just like the rainy season, can wash up enormous amounts of runoff, feeding the algae, prolonging blooms. Studies find that red tides are more common after certain weather patterns, like heavy rain, or hurricanes, with the latter getting more frequent due to human activities around the globe.

This is the best I could summarize.

So to empathize the ripple effect, simplified ver ; red tides have a lot of causes and effects.

The gulf of mexico harbors concentrations of karenia brevis, and trichodesmium, the type of cyanobacteria that can provide karenia with nitrogen. Karenia outcompetes or excludes other microbes, forming teeny tiny blooms. These blooms can’tmove on their own, and the scarce nutrients don’t allow them to bloom to catastrophic levels - yet. But there is another contributor that washes these small blooms towards the florida gulf coast. The gulf of mexico loop current acts as a super highway for the algae to be an unwitting passenger of, and when the little bloom finds itself at the nutrient rich waters of florida, that’s when all hell breaks loose. The waters of florida is enough to support the karenia blooming seriously out of hand, letting the tiny, undetectable bloom grow to monsters that discolor the water, coloring it anywhere from red, maroon, orange, yellow, green, and a whold lot of other colors, and produce toxins to commit marine genocide and litter beaches with the bodies of counless corpes. But why is the waters near the floridian shore so nutrient rich that there is such a catastrophe? Well, two reasons. Humans, and the gulf of mexico loop current again. The gulf of mexico loop current sort of washes nutrients from the water from the deep up towards the surface of the shore. But the main reason is agriculture and nutrient waste that comes from it. Farming uses a lot of fertilizer. 9.7 million acres of land was used just for farming in florida at the year 2019. Another thing is that florida has the attequite climate for crops to grow year round, needing fertilizer virtually any time of the year. But that’s not all. Florida has a rainy season, about two months or so that are filled with heavy rain. Heavy rain that supplies water and provides irrigation for farming, weathering soil, but also helping carry an unwitting passenger. The heavy rain washes fertilizer into the ocean, where it feeds the minor blooms that traveled there using the gulf of mexico loop current. Karenia brevis can use lots of different kinds of nutrient, and it helps them a whole bunch on multiplying and outcompeteing other organisms. But how is florida that good for farming anyway? Florida isn’t located near any active tectonic plates, so it has no volcanoes that erupt lots of minerals to make the soil rich. The rainy season comes in again, and as mentioned before, it weathers the soil to make it richer. One of the contributing climates of good weathering is hot temps. Florida’s rainy season hits right at summer, overlapping with the hottest part of the year. This leads to rich, good for farming soil. So this is why farming is such a crucial part of the floridian economy, yet it’s one of the biggest contributors to causing harmful red tides. But what happens after red tides bloom? How do they cause unbelievable economical damage, a single serious red tide causing between 150 to 250 million dollars? Well, this too is a ripple effect. As I have mentioned before, red tides litter beaches with corpses of dead fish, and release toxins. These toxins can accumilate(get stored) in shellfish, causing nerve poisoning when eaten, and with no way of knowing if shellfish are poisoned or not before eating them. So this shuts down the numerous shellfish production centers and farms(?(don’t know what to call them.. Growing sites?) and closing restaurants that have shellfish in their menus until the red tide is over. But because of runoff, or stuff like that, red tides can last for a long while, the worst one yet over seventeen months. This is not all. The poison also can go airborne when waves break open cells of karenia. The brevetoxins can travel up to a mile inland if wind conditions are just right. If you breathe in these toxins, fortunately, they don’t cause severe nerve poisoning, but cause mild respiratory syndromes. But these ‘mild effects’ can pile up, and can be dangerous for you if you breathe them in for a prolonged time period. And because of these reasons, florida is forced to close down beaches, and tourists have more mandatory reasons not to visit beaches then the fact that they have piles of dead fish on the shore and floating around in the water. As you might predict, this creates a pretty big dent in one of the biggest industries that florida relies on for economy. One way of seeing would be that one industry causes the damage, and the other suffers from it. But this too isn’t the whole pic, because the tourism industry impacts red tides too, but a whole lot more directly. As mentioned before, karenia can use a lot of different forms of nutrients, a trait that most other organisms lack, and it can feed directly on trash. Trash causes water pollution, because not all the plastic bottles you throw out are completely stertile. And karenia, can feed directly on this garbage juice. And this is why red tides are such a big environmental problem florida has to face every year.