Local Beaches Awash With Dead Fish

[phantom power]

(I copied this post from LBN, seemed appropriate. Apologies to Minstrel Boy...)

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

[Kool Kitty]

1. Is a rapid temperature drop like this unusual?

I know that it's unusually cool here today (and it is supposed to be cool for about the next four or five days) in New Jersey. the local weather guy said that they expect the low temperature records to be broken here this weekend.

[phantom power]

2. I really have no idea. It's tempting to speculate about

connections with atlantic currents shutting down. But I'm pulling that right out of my hiney.

I don't think of fish die-offs as "normal", but that's probably too simplistic. Natural events must cause die-offs with some frequency.

is there an oceanographer in the house?

[hatrack]

3. Hard to say - currents and temperatures often shift . . .

But on the other hand, a 20F drop is truly huge.

I think this may be something worth following, since I remember reports of very cold water off the Atlantic coast last summer as well. Does anyone else remember hearing about sudden water temp. drops in 2003?

[Kool Kitty]

4. Yes. I remember the local news channel commenting

on the fact that the beaches were full of people, but the water was too cold. If I am remembering correctly, it was the last week of July or the first week of August last year. They said that there were similar conditions up and down the Jersey coast. (The beach that was mentioned in the report was Point Pleasant, I think.)