Western Canada: Canada broke a national heat record on June 27, when the temperature in a small town in British Columbia hit nearly 116 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking an 84-year-old record of almost 3 degrees, with the weather dangerously low.“It just went on and on.”Īs the suffocating heat hits much of western North America, experts worry about human safety and power outages. ÂThe more I walked and the more I saw, the darker it all got,â Dr. The scientist in him was excited, he admitted, to see the real effect of something he had been studying for so long. 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 notice of the stunning 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. 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. "But what is most concerning about heat-death mortality is that it has the potential to kill a lot of adults.Dead mussels and clams covered the rocks of the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping as if they had been boiled. "Any mass die-off like this is a concern," said Holt. The 2019 heat wave is a particular concern because it led to the loss of a large number of adults in a single event, according to Holt. They found 27% of adult penguin corpses along paths heading out of the breeding colony to the ocean, where they could get a drink – penguins have glands that can filter salt out of the water.ĭead adults were often found on their stomachs with their feet and flippers extended and mouth open, a common panting and cooling pose for Magellanic penguins. Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly right Nearly three-quarters (264) of the penguins that died were adults, many of which likely died of dehydration, based on post-mortem analyses. The 19 January heat wave was the highest temperature the researchers have ever recorded at Punta Tombo. “It's the first time we've recorded a mass mortality event at Punta Tombo connected to extreme temperatures." Lead author Katie Holt, a UW doctoral student in biology said, "This extreme event fell near the tail end of the breeding season for Magellanic penguins, so it killed a large number of adults, as well as chicks. Read more: Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from space The extreme heat wave killed at least 354 penguins, based on a search for bodies by the researchers in the days following the record high temperature. 19, temperatures at the site in Punta Tombo, on the country's southern coast, spiked to 44C in the shade. Researchers from the University of Washington witnessed an extreme heat event in Argentina which struck one of the world's largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins in 2019. (Stock image/Getty)Ĭlimate change will not have terrifying effects not just on human lives – but on wildlife, a new report into a deadly heat event which killed hundreds of penguins has shown. Magellanic Penguins were wiped out in their hundreds by the heatwave.
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