A new paper in the journal Science does a great job explaining the Sargassum phenomenon in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Wang et al. discuss what is happening and, importantly, get into WHY. The image above is from Figure 1 in their article, showing floating Sargassum coverage over time. Check out the full paper HERE.
Citation: Wang M, Hu C, Barnes BB, Mitchum G, Lapointe B, Montoya JP. 2019. The great Atlantic Sargassum belt. Science 365: 83-87.