'Brown Tide" Portends Perfect Hurricane Storm Season

Puget Sound and Olympics Sunset, originally uploaded by K C_.


UPDATE:

Heat Wave accompanies '06 Hurricane Season

Will Not Show This As A Link- CENSORSHIP?www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/18/national/main1812525.shtml

 

EXERPT:

SEATTLE Jul 11, 2006 (AP)— Scientists say a bloom of deadly "brown tide" that makes a surprise visit to Washington's inland waters a few times each decade, killing fish and then quickly heading out to the ocean, swept through the area last week.

The brown tide is blamed on an single-celled organism called Heterosigma that sometimes blooms in late June or early July when water conditions are just right. This year's plankton bloom was the first major event since 1997, but not nearly as bad as an occurrence in 1991, when fisheries reported millions of dollars in dead fish.

Researchers believe Heterosigma kill fish by lodging in their gills and suffocating them.

Somehow, starving the fish helps them fight off the impact of the plankton.

He said this year's plankton bloom was widespread, from Canada's Georgia Strait to the Strait of Juan De Fuca, the San Juan Islands and Anacortes. From the air, the water contained large areas of water that had a coffee brown color on the surface and redder sections near the shore.

Rita Horner, senior researcher at the University of Washington's School of Oceanography, who has tracked Heterosigma for about 40 years, said this year's bloom lasted about a week.

Horner said she heard reports of lots of fish being killed this year, but none of the commercial fish farms told her how many fish they lost and fish kills in the wild are difficult to measure.

She said the Heterosigma bloom doesn't arrive on a regular schedule and that Washington's marine waters can go years without a major breakout, or it could show up twice in one year.

"It could come back next week if conditions are right," Horner said, adding that some of the plankton may still be spreading off the Pacific Coast where fish could be dying but no one would notice because the water isn't being tested regularly.

Jack Rensel, an independent scientist who tracked the most recent Heterosigma bloom for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said early July and early September are common times for the plankton to bloom.

Horner said the single-celled organisms, which scientists sometimes call the "hidden flora," may always be present in low concentrations in the region. The blooms were first discovered on the Pacific Coast in the 1960s. The algae also has been a problem on the East Coast and in the Pacific Ocean near Japan.

Warm temperatures, a certain percentage of fresh water in the marine waters usually caused by rivers filled with early snow melt and calm weather all seem to encourage the plankton blooms.

TEXAS BLOOM EXAMPLE

1997 was also the turnover year from La Nino to El-Nino, cold to hot ocean temperatures, so maybe there is another El-Nino brewing, which will also make for another, maybe worse? intense hurricane season.

Another indication that the El-Nino resurgence is underway, is that Mt. Hood is having more frequent swarms and Mt. St. Helens quakes magnitude 3 level routinely now. Both of these occurrances happened in the last 12 hours.

MAP 3.3 2006/07/11 20:24:48 46.197N 122.188W 0.8 1 km ( 0 mi) WSW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA
map 1.6 2006/07/11 16:16:43 45.328N 121.698W 5.5 22 km (14 mi) E of Mount Hood Village, OR
map 1.2 2006/07/11 15:46:34 45.332N 121.691W 5.7 22 km (14 mi) SSW of Parkdale, OR
map 2.1 2006/07/11 15:38:01 45.326N 121.689W 6.3 22 km (14 mi) SSW of Parkdale, OR
map 1.6 2006/07/11 15:37:46 45.329N 121.691W 6.0 22 km (14 mi) SSW of Parkdale, OR
map 1.1 2006/07/11 15:35:24 45.335N 121.680W 6.5 21 km (13 mi) SSW of Parkdale, OR