Local Beaches Awash With Dead Fish (Maryland)

Local Beaches Awash With Dead Fish
AP, Aug 4

OCEAN CITY, Md. (AP) - A surge of cold water generated from an offshore current killed nearly a million adult Atlantic croaker, leaving maintenance crews at local resorts with their hands full of carcasses to clean up.

In Ocean City, maintenance crews scoured the beaches Tuesday picking up and disposing of hundreds of dead Atlantic croaker - a silvery greenish and grayish fish with brassy spots - who succumbed to thermal shock.

...

The Maryland Department of Environment on Tuesday attributed the cause of the deaths to a sudden temperature drop in the water. No other species of fish or marine animals are believed to have been affected by exposure to the cold water temperatures, and tests for harmful algae blooms and bacteria have come up negative, according to spokesman Richard McIntire.

McIntire said several hundred thousand to slightly more than a million croaker have died.

"They were probably swimming in water temperature around the 60 degrees," he said. "Then it got down to the 40s. Just like humans, some of us suffer heatstroke or suffer frostbite at different temperatures. Same thing with fish. They couldn't handle the rapid temperature drop."
http://www.wmal.com/listingsEntry.asp?ID=240180&PT=NEWS


Scientists alarmed at increase in melt rate of ice
The Scotsman, Aug 4

GREENLAND’S cover of ice is melting ten times quicker than previously thought, an increase that could lead to floods across the world, scientists have found.

Newly published research shows an alarming rise in the rate of collapse of the massive Greenland ice-sheet as a result of global warming. Scientists now believe the ice-sheet is shrinking at the rate of ten metres a year, not the one metre previously thought

...

One medium-term side-effect of the destruction of the Greenland ice-sheet could be the loss of the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe warm and temperate. The fresh water from the ice mixes with the salt water in the sea, altering the salinity and changing the direction and behaviour of major currents.
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=891712004

the gravity of our environmental situation? Dead people (white, Christian, Rich, Republican people, of course) washing up on our shores due to thermal shock?

This will ultimately throw off nature's delicate balance, and then were in for it.

retain power.

There is simply no limit, so far as I can see, to the lies the Imperial Subjects of Amerika will swallow, abuses they (we) will take.

Eventually, I'll be proven wrong, I imagine, but the only question is whether that will come too late to do anything about it.

enjoy life while you can

Seems weird to me?

Melting polar ice caps in theory can affect ocean currents, which bring warm equatorial waters into the northern hemisphere, keeping us in our livable climate. If an excess of cold water gets dumped in the oceans by melting ice, those currents can alter and/or shut down entirely, causing the oceans, and thus the land to be become much colder in the northern hemisphere.

This "could" be the cause--a symptom of the larger problem. Not saying it *is* the cause. This is theoretical.

Was Cheney swimming nearby?

just asking...

RL

If the melting rate continues to increase
at this rate you and I shall see some strange days indeed.

Look! Michael Jackson!!!

about the waters off the eastern seaboard being much colder than normal. The situation was being 'monitored'. Does anyone have any updated info on the subject? Are the water temperatures lower overall again this summer?

but only at the surface. The fish were killed by a much more dramatic change at depth.

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html

Very interesting map (and resource in general) :-)