Oceans and Aquaculture

As of 2018, here are some NOAA links on aquaculture initiatives they and others have sponsored:

https://seagrant.noaa.gov/News/FeatureStories/ArtMID/715/ArticleID/251/Scientist...

Aquaculture initiatives from the oceanographers at Woods Hole:

http://www.whoi.edu/main/topic/aquaculture

Returning oyster shells to the ocean, and in a particularly hopeful configuration.

Louisiana is disappearing under water – can oysters save it? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180822-recycled-shells-of-louisiana-oyster-ree...

Forthcoming 2019 project by Project Drawdown on ocean plant aquaculture:

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/coming-attractions/marine-permaculture

>4 MaureenRoy: Very cool!

From National Geographic:

Massive 8,000-mile 'dead zone' could be one of the gulf's largest

Just off the coast of Louisiana and Texas where the Mississippi River empties, the ocean is dying. The cyclical event known as the dead zone occurs every year, but scientists predict that this year's could be one of the largest in recorded history.

Annual spring rains wash the nutrients used in fertilizers and sewage into the Mississippi. That fresh water, less dense than ocean water, sits on top of the ocean, preventing oxygen from mixing through the water column. Eventually those freshwater nutrients can spur a burst of algal growth, which consumes oxygen as the plants decompose.

The resulting patch of low-oxygen waters leads to a condition called hypoxia, where animals in the area suffocate and die. Scientists estimate that this year the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will spread for just over or just under 8,000 square miles across the continental shelf situated off the coast.

No comment yet on this new space satellite finding of a Pacific Ocean hot zone east of New Zealand, but perhaps their Prime Minister (NZ's Jacinda Arden) will come up with a plan:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/27/world/new-zealand-hot-ocean-water-trnd/index.html

"Eelgrass" may only be an Atlantic ocean thing, but I'm not sure. Pacific Ocean: When I lived in Hawaii for a year in the 20th century, we never saw eel grass in offshore beach areas (while swimming or snorkeling), and along the California coast in recent years, coastal ocean plant life news and magazine reports concentrate on kelp forests, but eelgrass has not been mentioned. Anyway, here's the article, first posted on Twitter today by the one and only Margaret Atwood:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/seagrass-restoration-project-virginia-ecosys...

A recent ocean problem has now started getting more press coverage:

https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/the-environmental-threat-youve-never-heard-of...

Rivers, not oceans. Salmon Cannon to assist fish over dams.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2KTNTTbafg0

No mention of helping them come back down the river safely.

Talking of salmon I just read a fascinating novel set in Haida Gwaii (offshore western Canada) about a community who depend on the annual salmon migration up the rivers there, and how they find a way to restore it when climate change drives the salmon away (a real thing apparently). The Ministry for Ignoring Climate Change by David Millar