Scientists now link massive starfish die-off, warming ocean

[suffragette]

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/scientists-now-link-massive-starfish-die-off-warming-ocean/

The observations he made and shared June 7, 2013, would turn out to be the first reported sighting of a mysterious starfish wasting disease that in 2013 and 2014 would devastate more than 20 species of starfish from Alaska to Mexico.

In its geographic scope, the number of species of starfish affected, and duration of the outbreak — still not over — the sea star wasting syndrome Fradkin first documented is now understood to be the largest observed die-off of a wild animal in the ocean. Nearly three years later, the epidemic of sea star wasting disease has left many coves, tide pools, pilings and beaches still largely bereft of starfish. Some locations saw complete mortality of sea stars.

Scientists working ever since to understand the outbreak have published the first evidence of a link between warmer ocean temperatures and the devastation of the wasting disease. Unusually warm ocean temperatures coincided with the 2014 die-off analyzed in the paper published last week in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

“We were able to show warmer temperatures were related with the higher risk of disease,” said Drew Harvell, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University and a co-author of the study, along with Fradkin and others. “We suspected there was a temperature link, but we really needed to look at the field data to pull that out, and we were able to back that up with lab experiments that found that in warmer temperatures, they died faster.”

[RobertEarl]

1. What happened in 2011?

Fukushima.

When it blew sky high, radiation clouds blew across the pacific and rained out over the west coast.

The main food of the sea stars are mussels and mussels are known to concentrate radioactive materials.

See ENEnews.com for more.

[longship]

26. Correlation is not causation.

My toe was hurting for two weeks after Fukushima. It didn't matter that I stubbed it on a chair. I guess it was Fukushima.

Sometimes idiocy deserves ridicule. This is one of those cases.

See ENEnews.com for the conspiracy theory spin, where everything is the blame of Fukushima.

If one believes that... Well one might want to hunker down in a bunker out of fear.

Otherwise, I recommend science, which one will not observe at ENEnews.com, nor in some DU posts.

[RobertEarl]

28. Yes you are

How you can deny common science and then talk about ridicule in the same post tells us all we need to know.

[longship]

30. No, I justifiably ridicule your silly sea star conspiracy.

Which has been debunked over and over and over again here.

Yet you keep it up when you have zero credibility left and when actual science has explained why sea stars are dying in the Pacific NW.

I do not understand why you insist on doubling down on such a losing hand. It does not help your argument against Fukushima, which to every thinking person is a real catastrophe, but has nothing whatsoever to do with sea stars dying on the west coast of the USA.

So why is this so important to you that you would be willing to just make shit up about it? Or to listen to the fools who do?

It kind of boggles ones mind.

[RobertEarl]

31. Heh

The virus is what is killing the sea stars.

That virus has been around for years and years.

Only after Fukushima did the virus begin overcoming the immune systems of the sea stars to this degree.

Radiation is well known to cause mutations.

The virus is mutating.

That is the science.

What you are doing is offering emotional outbursts.

[longship]

33. It's all about Fukushima, eh?

All of it!!!!! Everything!!!!!!! Run away!!!

That is your science? If I thought that, I would hide underground, or something. Thankfully, I don't.

Pshaw!

[RobertEarl]

34. There it is again from you

An emotional outburst devoid of science.

Before Fukushima the scientists found 1 part cesium in the ocean and that from the nuclear bomb tests, Recently they found 7 parts cesium. That is a 7 fold increase.

[longship]

35. Source? Peer review?

That is science, not made up shit from ENEnews.com. Or that idiot Arnie Gunderson, who they seem to like to cite a whole lot.

Such arguments have little credibility here.

No, sea star melting is not from Fukushima, no matter how one twists the data. The number one argument is that the sea star melting fucking predates Fukushima!

You are oh so busted on this one, Robert.

[RobertEarl]

36. Heh

I am so used to your emotional outbursts that none of them surprise me anymore. Makes me feel bad for you, tho.

The last outbreak of sea star wasting was after the nuclear bomb tests in the pacific in the 60's. Then, they sampled the water and found cesium. Now they are finding 7 times as much cesium.

ENEnews.com is a good source for the science about Fukushima. Just because they booted pro-nukers from posting there is no reason to deny that.

[longship]

37. ENEnews.com is utter rubbish, and everybody knows it.

Except for those who are foolish enough to cite it here.

Made up crap resides there. Like sea star conspiracy theories.

What's next? Fukushima caused lead in Flint, MI water?

Please. Give it a fucking rest, Robert. I like your political posts, but you are totally out of your element here.

[RobertEarl]

38. Your personal attacks are weird

But I do like that you keep bring up ENEnews.com since that is a good website for information about Fukushima. I remember when you used to post there.

[zappaman]

2. But...but...FUKUSHIMA!!!!

[suffragette]

3. So, reputable scientists note the climate link to worsening the impact of disease here

And a one-line sarcastic response s all you've got?

[Brother Buzz]

4. I guess you missed all the threads by 'scientists' on DU blaming the kill-off on Fukushima.

The article you posted is a confirmation of the theory floated some time ago that warmer water exasperated and accelerated the kill-off. Most reputable scientists agree a virus was the culprit, not Fukushima.

[RobertEarl]

5. Kinda funny, don't you think?

Water temperatures vary 30 degrees over the year, and have for centuries, yet the sea stars managed to fight off the viruses all those centuries.

Can you just imagine the backlash a scientist would get were one to actually claim they were studying what effect the known radiation might be doing?

It, the backlash, would make the recent climate deniers scrims look like playground acts. No scientist with hope for a bank account is going to touch what radiation might be doing to sea stars.

[NickB79]

7. It's not how much the water varies from month to month. It's the sustained high temps

Which is what we are now seeing with climate change: ocean waters routinely hitting temperatures, and staying at those temperatures, that in centuries past were hit only rarely, sometimes not for years between.

It's just like what's occurring on land. Once-in-a-century heatwaves and droughts are now happening once every decade, killing forests that otherwise survive temperature swings from -30F to 100F annually.

What IS funny is certain DU'ers who try to link Fukushima's radiation leak into the Pacific Ocean with starfish dieoffs that are occurring in the Atlantic Ocean. Or certain DU'ers who are trying to link radiation in general to starfish dieoffs that were first documented in the 1970's.

Hilarious, don't you think?

[RobertEarl]

11. Hilarious?

I don't fucking think so.

Some here make jokes about it, but it's a damn fucking serious matter.

Radiation is a well known toxin to all life forms.

What's funny is that some people fall all over themselves in denial of science and making excuses for the nuke industry.

For instance: Cesium was first discovered in the pacific as a result of all the nuclear bomb tests in the 60's and early 60's. tests. There's your link to your statement:

"... link radiation in general to starfish dieoffs that were first documented in the 1970's."

Have you no science in any of your accusations? Not that I have seen.

[NickB79]

8. It is indeed a shame no scientists are studying the effects of Fukushima on ocean life

Oh, wait a minute......

http://www.whoi.edu/main/topic/fukushima-radiation

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/radioactivity_in_the_ocean_diluted_but_far_from_harmless/2391/

http://commcgi.cc.stonybrook.edu/am2/publish/General_University_News_2/Stony_Brook_Scientists_Study_Ocean_Impacts_Of_Radioactive_Contamination_From_Japan_s_Fukushima_Nuclear_Power_Plant.shtml

http://phys.org/news/2011-06-scientists-ocean-impacts-radioactive-contamination.html

[Brother Buzz]

9. How do we know there have not been cyclical die-offs over the eons....

and starfish simply abide?

[RobertEarl]

10. Not only sea stars

Nearly all sea life is in steep decline, not only - but especially in the North pacific - but in the Atlantic also. And birds, and insects worldwide. Ever since Chernobyl, really, declines are the rule.

That's the thing with atmospheric dispersal - it's global.

Your continued denial of science reminds me of the climate deniers who make the same sort of claims.

[Brother Buzz]

14. What the Hell is a climate denier?

[RobertEarl]

16. They are

People who deny man can have any effect the world.

Nuke deniers are those who claim radiation has no effect on the world.

[Brother Buzz]

17. Perhaps you're thinking of climate change deniers

[RobertEarl]

18. Which are you?

The denials are denials of the science. Science being reading signs. Excess CO2 in the air is a sign. Excess radiation is also a sign. Denial of the signs and denial of what science says about effects, makes one a denier.

[Brother Buzz]

19. I'm with my state state legislatures, and we are totally up to speed on climate chage

Hell, we've already moved into the mitigation phase; the tough nut remaining is how to loosen the purse strings.

[suffragette]

20. The new studies note the warming water worsens the virus

They aren't discounting the virus or climate change, but noting connection of the impact of both.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/17/warming-oceans-are-turning-sea-stars-to-goo-and-killing-lobsters-scientists-say/

Warming waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans have increased the prevalence of diseases that are turning sea stars to mush and killing lobsters by burrowing under their shells and causing lesions, two new studies say. The outbreaks are so lethal, according to a biologist involved in both studies, that at least one species of sea star has vanished off the coasts of Washington and British Columbia and the lobster fishery, already decimated in southern New England, will likely be threatened in Maine.
~~~
The sea-star study was led by Morgan E. Eisenlord, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Both in a laboratory and at 16 sites on the San Juan Islands off Washington’s coast, researchers determined that ochre sea stars gradually became sicker as water temperatures rose slightly. Conditions simulated in the lab confirmed what the scientists observed in the field. As temperatures rose, the disease became more prevalent, and adult ochres died within days. The disease, plus death, was more prominent in temperatures between 54 degrees and 66 degrees Fahrenheit. For the adults, the risk of death was 18 percent higher at 66 degrees.
~~~
The researchers say all sea stars have carried the virus for a long time, based on 50-year-old museum collections. Warming waters and perhaps genetic change in the virus appear to increase its potency, Harvell said.



http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1689

[Brother Buzz]

21. Interesting, the virus was found in 50-year-old museum collections.

I worked at California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and always marveled at their basement supermarket sized collection of marine life (although I cringe thinking of all that cool glass in an earthquake). I betcha they've been cracking open a few jars to have a look-see too.

[suffragette]

22. It sounds like they were being very thorough in their study.

[Brother Buzz]

23. That's what reputable scientists do

[RobertEarl]

25. Did they even run a geiger test?

Did they even check for radiation?

We know the level of cesium in the water the sea stars live in is 7 times higher than before 3/11/11.

I have yet to see one scientist say they did a thorough study of the possibility of cesium or other radiation in starfish bodies.

Sorry, not even close to thorough.

[closeupready]

6. Yes; one-line sarcastic responses is all they have ever got.

Twas ever thus.

[suffragette]

12. Sadly so.

Doesn't seem like anyone is even looking at the article.

[pintobean]

13. Blame reply #1

Your thread was hijacked. It was predictable, unfortunately.

[RobertEarl]

15. Post #1 was about sea stars

Your post is not about sea stars.

Here is some background that may interest you: Starfish dying in the NW Pacific

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4381218

[longship]

27. Sea stars!!!!!

Not this shit again!

[Octafish]

24. Because three nuclear meltdowns are simply hilarious.

How many decades before the leaking radiation is stopped?

The Great Fukushima Cover-Up

How many centuries before the land can be used again? Millenia? Eons?

[Dont call me Shirley]

29. The uber-rich are destroying this planet. How can we stop them?

[suffragette]

32. Agree. One step might be to elect politicians who acknowledge climate change

And will follow through on measures addressing it.

I like your avatar

[Dont call me Shirley]

39. Vote out the toxic bums! A mass awakening must occur before it is too late.

And in regard to my avatar.....Surely you can't be serious?

[suffragette]

40. Shirley so!

[Dont call me Shirley]

41. Suffragette City is one of my very favorite songs.

[suffragette]

42. Mine, too.