FLORIDA — Researchers at the University of South Florida say "major beaching events" are "inevitable" around the Caribbean and parts of Florida resulting from the five-thousand-mile belt of seaweed in the Atlantic Ocean. 

What You Need To Know

  • Researchers at the University of South Florida say "major beaching events" are "inevitable" around the Caribbean and parts of Florida resulting from the five-thousand-mile belt of seaweed in the Atlantic Ocean
  • The blanket of seaweed is so large that it can be seen from space and is being tracked by satellites

  • Rick Lumpkin, the director of the Physical Oceanography Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory at the NOAA, says pieces of it have already made their way to Florida

  • Lumpkin says large amounts of seaweed can damage reefs and seagrass, and it smells when it rots

The blanket of seaweed is so large that it can be seen from space and is being tracked by satellites.

Rick Lumpkin, the director of the Physical Oceanography Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory at the NOAA, says pieces of it have already made their way to Florida. 

"We've seen about mid-to-late February the kind of the leading edges of it started reaching Florida and passing Florida," Lumpkin told Spectrum News. 

The species of seaweed referred to as sargassum originates in the Sargasso Sea, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern United States. Lumpkin says large beach inundations started occurring in 2011.

According to a recent outlook from the University of South Florida Optical Oceanography Lab, "there is already a sign that this year's Sargassum bloom will likely be the largest ever recorded, with major impacts throughout the next few months."

The report says the peak month could be June or July.

Lumpkin says what we can expect along Florida beaches depends on winds and tides, but the west coast of Florida does not look particularly threatened.

"This particular batch, blob, that's been making the news so much recently, is really going to affect mostly along the path of kind of between Cuba and the Keys and then between Miami and Bahamas and then all along the U.S. east coast, all the way up to Wilmington, North Carolina," said Lumpkin.

As of March 23 Lumpkin said there had been "no requests from the state of Florida or federal agencies requesting information from NOAA about potential impacts."

Lumpkin says large amounts of seaweed can damage reefs and seagrass, and it smells when it rots.

"It's very unpleasant," said Lumpkin. "It releases hydrogen sulfide, and there have been published studies that argue that there can be negative health impacts to humans under conditions like that." 

Lumpkin noted that in small amounts, the seaweed is beneficial to a number of species, like baby turtles and juvenile fish.