Artic Blob Found To Be Massive Bloom of Algae

This story is from Time concerning the recent "blob" of oil like material that was found a couple of weeks ago in the Artic.

Source

Test results released Thursday showed the blob wasn't oil, but a plant — a massive bloom of algae. While that may seem less dangerous, a lot of people are still uneasy. It's something the mostly Inupiat Eskimo residents along Alaska's northern coast say they could never remember seeing before.
(See pictures of the Arctic.)

Algal blooms are a common and often menacing event along many U.S. coastlines. Some strains are toxic and can close beaches and poison seafood, posing a hazard to consumers. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintains a forecasting system for the Gulf of Mexico to warn of harmful Florida blooms. On Thursday, on the other side of the continent, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, urged NOAA to direct at least $500,000 to assess a disastrous red tide — a form of algal bloom. "The state of Maine is currently besieged by the most virulent red tide event ever recorded in the region," Snowe wrote. "As a result of this outbreak, virtually the entire coast of our state has been closed to the harvest of clams, mussels, ocean quahogs, and other shellfish."

The story provides some great insight on what this means for biological life in sub zero climates as well as the effects of Climate Change as a hole.

So far in Alaska, nothing suggests the Chukchi Sea blob is toxic, although the Coast Guard's Hasenauer said toxicity tests were planned.

Well at least it's not going to kill anybody, hopefully.

Any thoughts ATS?

~Keeper

I read about the blob in another post. It is cool that it was identified. I guess the algae have nothing feeding on them up there. You mentioned that the algae is probably not toxic. I would think some creature would be pigging out on this smorgasbord!

I called it right off, but I've done a lot of diving and had enough aquariums, so that it seemed pretty obvious. But that is one large bloom. But they did say that climate change could lead to this sort of thing. It's all good though, everyone just needs to /headinsand until our entire ecosystem collapses. It's not us after all, that's impossible!

Not sure what this has to do with the global meltdown.

Good info Keeper. I was let down by it being a natural occurance. I was thinking of all the worst cases it could have been.