When does an ocean become a desert?

Blogger King

July 2008

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When does an ocean become a desert?

11:53 AM Wed, Mar 05, 2008 | Permalink

The answer to that question, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is when they become barren of surface sea life. And the agency warns those areas are getting larger.
In a study released today, NOAA announced that "Between 1998 and 2007, these expanses of saltwater with low surface plant life in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans grew by 15 percent or 6.6 million square kilometers."

The agency said evidence of this expansion comes from data collected by a sensor aboard NASA's orbiting SeaStar spacecraft.
This is alarming news because it indicates the productive areas of the oceans are shrinking.
The study will lose traction and attention with skeptics when it links the findings to climate change. We have reached a point now where the two most extreme sides of that issue seem so unwilling to consider the constantly emerging evidence. But this time it seems undeniable that warming sea temperatures are creating expanding barren areas in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Climate change or not, this is a problem, so the question of 'When does an ocean become a desert?' might as well be expanded to 'When can we start agreeing on the basics and what to do about it?'

2 Comments

chard said:

If this planet has been around for billions of years, experiencing massive volcanic eruptions, ice ages, earthquakes, humongous dinosaurs roaming the land eating large amounts of vegetation, and meteors crashing in to it even creating lakes, etc, etc, etc...It only seems logical that this planet and her inhabitants, including humans (who are also millions of years old, right?)can survive, will survive another billion years.

The problem between the two sides on the global warming issue is that, one side wants to blame humans, not natural occuring events. That same side believes the only way to combat the warming is to TAX Americans.

March 15, 2008 9:47 AM

Doug Lacy said:

The time is not blame,,,,the time is to put aside the politics and get a real fix. Get the involvement from scientific groups without
agenda's! Get the financial support from whomever cares enough. Cleaning bodies of water is not diffacult!!!

May 15, 2008 8:00 AM

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When does an ocean become a desert?

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