(as spring approaches) Who Needs Hurricanes?

hurricanes bring pure destruction, nothing good…….or:

Hurricanes that sweep across the ocean are constructive, at least for barren, relatively lifeless stretches of ocean. Environmental scientists, including Steve Babin at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, have found that in a hurricane’s wake, tiny ocean plants called phytoplankton tend to do very well and bloom in large numbers.

Babin thinks that what’s happening is that when a hurricane passes over so called “ocean deserts,” it stirs up the water. The churning dredges up cooler, nutrient-rich water from deeper in the ocean. This does two things. First, it brings the phytoplankton that are already there closer to the surface, where they have greater access to sunlight. And the nutrients that swirl up to the surface create the perfect condition for a healthy phytoplankton bloom.

Phytoplankton are the basis for the entire ocean food chain.

without them there could very well be NO life in the oceans.

in addition hurricanes coming inland, prune forests of dead, dying, weak and sickly trees, far more selectively than forest fires.

in addition, through their powerful winds they bring sea spray containing iodine, a nutrient necessary for the functioning of the thyroid gland, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles inland. iodine is otherwise found only in the oceans.