Kelp forests are majestic, life-sustaining ecosystems. Climate change imperils them.
A few miles west of San Diego is a stretch of ocean that’s rather unremarkable from the surface. The water is cold and blue. There’s some green seaweed peeking out.
Sink below the waves, however, and a whole other realm appears. Under the sea here, near Point Loma, is a forest as beautiful as any other. It’s made not of trees but of strands of giant kelp, a species of algae that can grow taller than a 10-story building.
Tethered to the seafloor and buoyed by air-filled chambers, the kelp strands undulate with the current, moving in slow motion. Schools of fish, seals, and other aquatic critters weave through the stalks like birds through a forest canopy.
“Diving into a forest is like descending into a cathedral,” Jarrett Byrnes, a marine ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said of kelp forests. Light from the surface filters through blades of kelp as if they’re stained glass, said Byrnes, who’s been diving kelp forests for more than 20 years. “It’s just amazing.”
Why are many kelp forests disappearing? - Vox
A few miles west of San Diego is a stretch of ocean that’s rather unremarkable from the surface. The water is cold and blue. There’s some green seaweed peeking out.
Sink below the waves, however, and a whole other realm appears. Under the sea here, near Point Loma, is a forest as beautiful as any other. It’s made not of trees but of strands of giant kelp, a species of algae that can grow taller than a 10-story building.
Tethered to the seafloor and buoyed by air-filled chambers, the kelp strands undulate with the current, moving in slow motion. Schools of fish, seals, and other aquatic critters weave through the stalks like birds through a forest canopy.
“Diving into a forest is like descending into a cathedral,” Jarrett Byrnes, a marine ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said of kelp forests. Light from the surface filters through blades of kelp as if they’re stained glass, said Byrnes, who’s been diving kelp forests for more than 20 years. “It’s just amazing.”
Why are many kelp forests disappearing? - Vox