Harmful algae taking advantage of glob...( CHAPEL HILL You know that green scu...)

CHAPEL HILL You know that green scum creeping across the surface of your local public water reservoir" Or maybe its choking out a favorite fishing spot or livestock watering hole. Its probably cyanobacteria blue-green algae and, according to a paper in the April 4 issue of the journal Science, it relishes the weather extremes that accompany global warming.

Hans Paerl, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences Professor and co-author of the Science paper, calls the algae the cockroach of lakes. Its everywhere and its hard to exterminate but when the sun comes up it doesnt scurry to a corner, its still there, and its growing, as thick as 3 feet in some areas.

The algae has been linked to digestive, neurological and skin diseases and fatal liver disease in humans. It costs municipal water systems many millions of dollars to treat in the United States alone. And though its more prevalent in developing countries, it grows on key bodies of water across the world, including Lake Victoria in Africa, the Baltic Sea, Lake Erie and bays of the Great Lakes, Floridas Lake Okeechobee and in the main reservoir for Raleigh, N.C.

This is a worldwide problem, said Paerl, Kenan Professor of marine and environmental sciences in UNCs College of Arts and Sciences.

Its long been known that nutrient runoff contributes to cyanobacterial growth. Now scientists can factor in temperature and global warming, said Paerl, who, with professor Jef Huisman from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, explains the new realization in Science paper.

As temperatures rise waters are more amenable to blooms, Paerl said.

The algae also thrive in wet, soggy ground in areas experiencing periodic floods, like the U.S. Midwest. And in a drought, like the Southeastern United States is experiencing now, other algae and aquatic organisms die off, cyanobacteria thrive, waiting to explode

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