“We are already at critical temperatures three weeks before the most serious heating occurs,” said Don Chapman, a retired fisheries biologist who specialized in salmon and steelhead trout, talking about conditions along the Snake River in Washington, where four dams are the subject of longstanding controversy. Now, with climate change worsening heat waves and droughts, scientists say the conditions look grim without intense intervention, which comes with its own risks. A network of longstanding dams in western states already makes the journey perilous. Salmon make an extraordinary migration, often hundreds of miles, from the inland rivers and lakes where they are born, out to sea, and then back again to spawn the next generation. That means biologists are watching river temperatures with alarm. Now, another heat wave appears to be building, only worsening the ongoing drought. While the heat wave over the Pacific Northwest has eased, punishing temperatures have persisted across much of the American West. But if these extreme heat waves become too frequent, species won’t have time to recover. Species that live in intertidal zones are resilient, he noted, and the mussels on the shady north side of boulders seem to have survived. “It’s at least something that we’re starting to think about,” he said. One concern is whether the sea ducks, which feast on mussels in the winter before migrating to their summer breeding grounds in the Arctic, will have enough food to survive the journey. Scientists have only begun to consider the domino effects. “The more I walked and the more I saw, the more sobering it all became,” Dr. The scientist in him was excited, he admitted, to see the real-life effect of something he’d been studying for so long. When he walked to the beach last week on one of the hottest days, the smell of decay struck him immediately. Harley took in the eye-popping weather forecasts, he thought about how low the tide would be at midday, baking the exposed mussels, sea stars and barnacles. A study by an international team of climate researchers found 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, driven by humans burning fossil fuels, wreaks havoc on animals and humans alike.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |