Warmer temperatures and increases in agricultural water runoff are sapping the Gulf of its oxygen supply, leaving it uninhabitable.
Scientists have announced that the Gulf of Mexico's 'dead zone'—where there is so little oxygen that the ocean becomes unsurvivable—is now the size of New Jersey.Around 6,705 square miles of potential habitat has been wiped out from fish, sea plants, and other ocean life due to water being 'hypoxic.' This makes it the 12th largest dead zone recorded in the past 38 years of record-keeping.
and its partners monitor the area annually to track its size and impact, informing mitigation efforts.'It's critical that we measure this region's hypoxia as an indicator of ocean health, particularly under a changing climate and potential intensification of storms and increases in precipitation and runoff,' said Nicole LeBoeuf, assistant administrator of
's National Ocean Service in a statement.'The benefit of this long-term data set is that it helps decision makers as they adjust their strategies to reduce the dead zone and manage impacts to coastal resources and communities.
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