Almost half of the Black Sea has become unsuitable for life – Moskovsky Komsomolets

In the future, it can threaten all living in it plants and animals

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Over half a century 40 percent of the Black sea were not suitable for life, found an international group of scientists from Belgium, Germany, Italy and the United States. This is due to the fact that the layer of sea water, oxygenated with 1955 goda becomes thinner, and the concentration of phosphorus and nitrogen in the sea, on the contrary, increased.

Photo: pixabay.com

The researchers collected data on how changed the Black Sea in the period from 1955 to 2015. In particular, they drew attention to the border separating the less dense upper layer of the denser lower. As it turned out, the distance between the interface and the surface of the water for interested researchers period decreased from 140 to 90 meters. This means that about 40 percent of the previously habitable Black Sea waters are erased – just the top layers contain necessary for underwater inhabitants oxygen

So far, the experts are not ready to confidently answer the question on. why these changes have occurred. However, researchers believe that this may be due to global warming, as well as the fact that for decades the water enters a large amount of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds – a process that, according to scientists, is called eutrophication

Experts. They believe that if they faithfully analyzed the situation, once the upper layers can be very thin or even mingle with the lower, then the living beings that inhabit the Black sea today, whether animals or plants, more than to dwell in it will not.

The results of their research, scientists reported on Biogeosciences magazine.

Recall that in February of this year, another group of researchers from the University of Maryland, expressed concern that in the future “ecological desert” can turn into the Indian ocean. How do I find specialists, in 16 years the amount of phytoplankton in the western part of the ocean has decreased by 30 percent, which will probably run the whole chain of doubt, which can lead to the destruction of entire ecosystems.