BANDA/CERAM & MOLUCCA/TIMOR SARGASSO SEA

Please use our A-Z to navigate this site or return HOME

SARGASSUM - The giant brown seaweed, having shown that it can spread from North to South Atlantic oceans, could spread to the Indian and Pacific oceans as a potentially invasive species. The proof of which (as a theory) is satellite pictures, and changing wind states. The spread witnessed here, could just as easily migrate between oceans, and thence to the bays and seas within those oceans.

We are concerned that with the oceans warming at a faster rate than predicted, and with the spill over of sargassum from the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic, to create an Atlantic Equatorial sargassum gyre, that it is almost inevitable, and we might expect to see a South Atlantic sargassum gyre in the not too distant future, in proportion to insolation, since photosynthesis is the propagator of plant life.

If that comes to pass, and with the Indian and Pacific oceans also warming at the same rate as the Atlantic, so generating faster currents and winds; spillage around the horns could become a distinct possibility. In which case, the Banda, Ceram, Molucca and Timor Seas would be a prime contender for a micro sargassum gyre. Dependent on location current circulation conditions. Or at least may suffer a similar fate to the Caribbean Sea, where the islands therein suffer beaches strewn with mounds of sargassum, to ruin fishing, tourism and marine ecology.

THE BANDA, CERAM, MULUCCA & TIMOR SEAS

The Banda Sea (Indonesian: Laut Banda, Portuguese: Mar de Banda, Tetum: Tasi Banda) is one of four seas that surround the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, connected to the Pacific Ocean, but surrounded by hundreds of islands, including Timor, as well as the Halmahera and Ceram Seas. It is about 1000 km (600 mi) east to west, and about 500 km (300 mi) north to south.

Islands bordering the Banda Sea include Sulawesi to the west, Buru, Ambon Island, Seram, Aru Islands, Barat Daya Islands, to the Tanimbar Islands, the Kai Islands and Timor in the East. Although the borders of the sea are hazardous to navigation, with many small rocky islands, the middle of the sea is relatively open. Island groups within the sea include the Banda Islands. A number of islands in the Banda Sea are active volcanoes including Gunung Api and Manuk in the Banda Islands. 

The Banda arc is famous for its 180° curvature and is, in Timor, generally agreed to be the product of collision between a volcanic arc and the Australian continental margin.

The Banda Sea is a marine eco-region, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. It is part of the Coral Triangle region, which has the greatest diversity of coral reef species in the broader Indo-Pacific.

The islands surrounding the Banda Sea are part of Wallacea, a biogeographical region that contains the islands lying between Asia and Australia which haven't been joined to either continent. The islands of Wallacea are home to a mix of plant and animal species from both tropical Asia (the Indomalayan realm) and the Australasian realm which includes Australia and New Guinea.

INDONESIA & CLIMATE CHANGE

Indonesia lies between latitudes 11°S and 6°N, and longitudes 95°E and 141°E. It is the world's largest Archipelagic state, extending 5,120 kilometres (3,181 mi) from east to west and 1,760 kilometres (1,094 mi) from north to south. The country's Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investments Affairs says Indonesia has 17,504 islands (with 16,056 registered at the UN) scattered over both sides of the equator, around 6,000 of which are inhabited. The largest are Sumatra, Java, Borneo (shared with Brunei and Malaysia), Sulawesi, and New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea).

Indonesia lies along the equator, and its climate tends to be relatively even year-round.Some regions, such as Kalimantan and Sumatra, experience only slight differences in rainfall and temperature between the seasons, whereas others, such as Nusa Tenggara, experience far more pronounced differences with droughts in the dry season and floods in the wet. Rainfall varies across regions, with more in western Sumatra, Java, Indonesia has two seasons—a wet season and a dry season—with no extremes of summer or winter. For most of Indonesia, the dry season falls between May and October, with the wet season between November and April. Indonesia's climate is almost entirely tropical, dominated by the tropical rainforest climate found in every large island of Indonesia.

Several studies consider Indonesia to be at severe risk from the projected effects of climate change. These include unreduced emissions resulting in an average temperature rise of around 1 °C (2 °F) by mid-century, raising the frequency of drought and food shortages (with an impact on precipitation and the patterns of wet and dry seasons, and thus Indonesia's agriculture system) as well as numerous diseases and wildfires. Rising sea levels would also threaten the majority of Indonesia's population who lives in low-lying coastal areas. Impoverished communities would likely be affected the most by climate change.

CERAM SEA

he Seram Sea or Ceram Sea is one of several small seas between the scattered islands of Indonesia. It is a section of the Pacific Ocean with an area of approximately one hundred twenty thousand square kilometres (46,000 sq mi) located between Buru and Seram, which are two of the islands once called the South Moluccas. These islands are the native habitat of plants long coveted for their use as spices, such as nutmeg, cloves, and black peppercorns, and the seas surrounding them were busy shipping routes. The Seram Sea is also the habitat of several species of tropical goby and many other fish. Like many other small Indonesian seas, the Seram Sea is rocky and very tectonically active. 

MOLUCCA SEA

The Molucca Sea is located in the western Pacific Ocean, around the vicinity of Indonesia, specifically bordered by the Indonesian Islands of Celebes (Sulawesi) to the west, Halmahera to the east, and the Sula Islands to the south. The Molucca Sea has a total surface area of 77,000 square miles (200,000 square km). The Molucca Sea is rich in coral and has many diving sites due to the deepness of its waters. The deepness of the water explains the reasoning behind dividing the sea into three zones, which functions to transport water from the Pacific Ocean to the shallower seas surrounding it.

The Molucca Sea borders the Banda Sea to the south and the Celebes Sea to the west. To the north is Philippine Sea and to the east is Halmahera Sea. 

TIMOR SEA

The Timor Sea (Indonesian: Laut Timor, Portuguese: Mar de Timor, Tetum: Tasi Mane or Tasi Timór) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia.

The sea contains a number of reefs, uninhabited islands and significant hydrocarbon reserves. International disputes emerged after the reserves were discovered resulting in the signing of the Timor Sea Treaty.

The Timor Sea was hit by the worst oil spill for 25 years in 2009.

ORIGINS

The North Atlantic Sargasso Sea is where sargassum originates and was contained for hundreds of years, until climate change and intensive farming. But should the unthinkable happen, and the invasive species take hold in the South Atlantic, from whence to spread it's biological advantage, one can imagine the dire consequences, perhaps mirroring that now ruining the Caribbean Sea. Make no mistake, the consequences of climate change and intensive, fertilizer based farming, could become a deadly world contagion, to make other epidemics seem insignificant, in terms of potential human tragedy.

An animal has a means to exhaust toxic waste, essential for a healthy lifestyle. The oceans have nowhere to dump the excrement we dump in it. They just get more polluted. Except for sargassum piling onto the shores, telling us that we have reached the limit.

So, what are the chances of it happening? Could there be a 'Banda/Ceram/Molucca/Timor Sargasso Sea,' or belt, where the present welcoming waters are turned into a cesspit of foul smelling rotten seaweeds, as they release hydrogen sulphide gas to choke visitors to their shores.

COMPUTER SIMULATIONS & CONTAINMENT DEVICES

That all depends on temperature rise of seawater, combined with nutrient supply, and circulating currents, including winds. All of which is measurable, for variable algorithmic computer simulations. As has been performed on the influx to the Caribbean Sea, via the equatorial Atlantic gyre, by scientists at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg's College of Marine Science, who used NASA satellite observations to discover and document the largest bloom of macroalgae. Others used Global Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model surface currents (HYCOM) (Chassignet et al., 2007) and National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis (NCEP), in their simulations.

But nobody has yet created a computer model of a SeaVax Calypso or Sargasso, used in various (fleet SeaNet formations) to determine if such a concept could control volume escalation, before they grow to be profusely irrepressible. Indeed such simulations may help develop such concepts in terms of capacity and operations, that they may, or may not, contain the crisis, preventing a worldwide state of emergency - by nipping it in the bud.

THEORY DEVELOPMENT

At this stage of the formulation of his theory, the innovator is considering the awful prospect, based on the demonstrable and devastating spread of sargassum from the North Atlantic to the Equatorial South Atlantic, but not yet migrating to the more general south, due presumably, to temperatures not yet being to the liking of the buoyant seaweed.

The three major oceans are all interconnected via currents and driving winds. The main barrier to migration at present, is the temperature and level of nutrients, that is lower where the seaweed mats could pass from one to another. But that is by no means a hard point, as the melting of the polar caps indicates. We are living in changeable times, where the unthinkable is taking place, as a pace faster than previously supposed.

In other words, the impossible is rapidly becoming possible. And there is no containment system at present, to prevent that from happening; no international coordination, or action plan. A recipe for disaster you may think!

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The sargassum crisis seen in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico could be just the beginning of a worldwide plague, stemming from our inability to curb political insatiability for fossil fuels - to power failing economic strategies, based on growth, when we have already used up the planet twice over, in sustainable terms.

The answer to failed political policies is very often a jolly good war, (Russia Vs Ukraine). When all cock-ups get thrown to the wind in the media scrum, and a whitewash ensues, until the next band of post-war cutthroats is elected, each with their hands in the pockets of Lucifer's climate change deniers. That said, it would take a nuclear conflict to reduce earth's population significantly enough to brake global warming - but then the planet would be barren and unable to support human life. Hence, an unthinkable solution to all but the most desperate of homicidal kleptocrats: warmongers.

But, ignoring thermonuclear first strikes for now, even if we transition to renewables immediately, global warming will not reverse for 30-50 years at best, and that is with a fair political wind. Meaning that the conditions for sargassum to populate welcoming equatorial waters (rich in nutrients) around the globe, remains a distinct possibility. Such as the:

Arabian Sea

Atlantic - North & South Equatorial

Banda Ceram Molucca & Timor Seas

Bay of Bengal

Celebes Sea

Gulf of Guinea

Gulf of Thailand

Indian Ocean

Java Sea

Pacific Ocean - North & South, Equatorial Belt (Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama regions)

Philippine Sea

South China Sea

Seas and oceans in these latitudes could become inundated with macro algae, if the rafts of floating seaweed manage to navigate less hospitable barriers, such as colder regions. Which at the moment, Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope appear to offer some protection from invasion.

THESIS

This is a theory proposed by Nelson Kay (as a volunteer) in August of 2022, based on his work with the SeaVax team from 2016 - 2020. Though that exertion was mostly concerning micro and macro plastic recovery and river containment, the ocean engineering and logistical challenges posed by SeaVax are kindred concepts, and may be sympathetically adapted or even interchangeable to some degree. And may one day inspire others to devise a practical resolution.

Academics and scientific institutions inclined to test such thesis, or otherwise wishing to provide data or technological assistance, positive or negative, should please contact the Cleaner Ocean Foundation in the first instance. The aim being to prove or disprove the concept, to advance our knowledge in this little understood area of Oceanology/Oceanography. Students at all levels are most welcome, as are degree level students and post graduates looking to higher level qualifications, or simply to gain experience.

There are a million reasons for not doing something, and only one for taking up a challenge. Most people will use manifold negatives to sit back in their armchairs, and postulate. But, every now and again, someone is foolhardy enough to roll their sleeves up - and experiment - because they feel they must. Despite the enormity of the task. And that is how this website came about, in support of the SeaVax project in 2017.

PLASTIC TIDE - These amazing pictures of a giant plastic tide were taken by Caroline Power. Please note how plastic and sargassum intertwine, creating a separation problem.

CARIBBEAN ISLANDS UNDER THREAT A-Z

Anguilla

Antigua and Barbuda

Aruba (Netherlands)

Bahamas
Barbados

British Virgin Islands

Caribbean Netherlands

Cayman Islands (UK)

Cuba

Curaçao (Netherlands)

Dominica

Dominican Republic (Hispaniola)

Grenada

Guadeloupe (France) 
Haiti (Hispaniola)
Jamaica
Martinique (France) 
Montserrat
Puerto Rico (US) 

Roatán

Saint Barthélemy

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia 

Saint Martin 

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Sint Maarten (Netherlands)

Tortuga

Trinidad and Tobago

Turks and Caicos Islands
United States Virgin Islands 

LINKS & REFERENCE

http://www.

 This website is provided on a free basis as a public information service. copyright © Cleaner Oceans Foundation Ltd (COFL) (Company No: 4674774) August 2022. Solar Studios, BN271RF, United Kingdom. COFL is a charity without share capital. The names Amphimax™ RiverVax™ and SeaVax™ are trademarks.