![]() When he hit the beach last week on one of the hottest days, the smell of rot hit him immediately. Just before the heat wave, when Dr Harley took in the mind-blowing weather forecast, he thought of low tide at noon, cooking up the mussels, starfish and barnacles on display. A study by an international team of climate researchers found that it would have been virtually impossible for such extremes to occur without global warming. Hundreds of people died last week when the heat wave parked over the Pacific Northwest. Such extreme weather conditions will become more frequent and intense, scientists say, as climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels by humans, wreaks havoc on animals and humans. #Heat killed marine wildlife masse series#If you factor in the other creatures that live in the mussel beds and on the shore – barnacles, hermit crabs and other crustaceans, various worms, tiny sea cucumbers – the death toll easily exceeds one billion, a he declared.ĭr Harley continues to study the damage and plans to publish a series of articles. He estimated the losses for the mussels alone at hundreds of millions. Harley first looked at the number of blue mussels living on a particular shoreline, what part of the area is good habitat for mussels, and what fraction of the mussels he observed died. ÂIt sounds like one of those post-apocalyptic movies,â said Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia who studies the effects of climate change on coastal marine ecosystems. freshwater, according to a preliminary estimate and interviews with scientists. The combination of extraordinary heat and drought that hit the western United States and Canada over the past two weeks has killed hundreds of millions of marine animals and continues to threaten countless species of seafood. Sockeye salmon swam slowly in an overheated Washington River, prompting wildlife officials to truck them to cooler areas. Dead mussels and clams covered the rocks of the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping as if they had been boiled. ![]()
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