Marine scientist Mengqiu Wang is no stranger to questions about the forecast. The seaweed forecast, that is.
Wang, a researcher at the University of South Florida, is one of the scientists who tracked the largest seaweed bloom in history – an expansive 5,500 mile cluster that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of West Africa in 2018. It was documented in a report published in the journal Science on July 5.
But now enormous piles of Sargassum weed, a smelly, yellow algae, are once again washing up on beaches this summer. So it’s no surprise to Wang that people are curious as to how bad it will be this year. Luckily, it’s not poisonous, but it can clog up shores and reek of rotting eggs when it starts to decay.
