The creeping threat of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt

Visible from space, an explosion of harmful seaweed now stretches like a sea monster across the ocean. Could robots save us from it – and store carbon in the process? To see the full article click here.

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Glossary of Terms

Wave Height

The vertical distance between a crest and the preceding trough.

Pocket Beach

A beach, usually small, in a coastal reentrant or between two littoral barriers (often rocky headlands).

Precautionary approach

The essence of the approach is expressed in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration that states "Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason to postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation." The approach is concerned with avoiding risk that has not been assessed, i.e. uncertainty.

Photic Zone

The zone extending downward from the ocean surface within which the light is sufficient to sustain photosynthesis. The depth of this layer varies with water clarity, time of year and cloud clover, but is about 100m in the open ocean.

It may be considered the depth to which all light is filtered out except for about one percent and may be calculated as about two and a half-times the depth of a secchi disk reading.

Toe

Lowest part of sea and portside breakwater slope, generally forming the transition to the seabed.

Littoral Zone

In beach terminology, an indefinite zone extending seaward from the shoreline to just beyond the breaker zone.

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The creeping threat of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt