Ocean currents only seem to behave randomly; researchers have detected a method to their movements. They're coordinated in fashion similar to the way a muscle moves around a "skeleton." By recognizing that system, researchers may be able to predict it, in the same way as meteorologists predict the weather. And that could bode well for pollution in South Florida beaches:
The scientists proposed building a holding tank for the fertilizers and pesticides that wash from farmland into the neighboring watershed that could release pollutants only at times when they would quickly drift into the ocean, where they would be so diluted they would pose less harm to marine life. In a later experiment, scientists found that the path of buoys dispatched in the bay followed the path predicted by the computer simulations.
Researchers who studied the waters along the southeastern coast of Florida found a similar structure that they argued could be used to reduce the effects of pollution near Hollywood Beach, south of Fort Lauderdale.
