Pirate's Cove

Seriously, this is what they call science, and it actually gets published as news

Scientists Pinpoint Cause of Massive Sea Star Die-Offs, and Suspect a Link to Global Warming

After years of scientific sleuthing, a team of West Coast researchers reported that they have identified a particular strain of ocean bacteria that has killed more than 6 billion sea stars since 2013. In a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, they said the die-off was caused by a type of Vibrio bacteria that was previously only known as a pathogen in some shellfish larvae.

Vibrio bacteria are more frequently causing problems in a warming world. The bacteria sometimes cause dangerous infections and intestinal illnesses in humans, including cholera.

The breakthrough finding will help scientists determine possible conservation or adaptation measures in response to the intensifying consequences of the sea star die-off. Sunflower sea stars, which can grow up to 3 feet across and sprout 24 arms, are critical to West Coast kelp ecosystems, where they devour certain types of sea urchins that can eat through the forests of seaweed if the sea stars don’t check their populations.

I mean, I’ll agree that the die-offs are bad. I just wonder, though, if it could possibly have a different cause, or, did they simply say “anthropogenic climate change”?

Human activities are speeding disruptions in many ecosystems and the rapid expansion of the Vibrio-driven sea star die-off shows how the impacts sometimes outpace scientists’ ability to study them.

The sudden spread of the disease caught scientists off guard, and for many years they suspected a viral pathogen, Gehman said. But researchers didn’t have much information about what the ecosystem was like before the outbreak.

“We didn’t know what was normal for the microbes and bacteria and the viruses in these systems,” she said. “When you don’t have a good idea of what used to be there, it’s hard to find what’s new. And that’s part of why we found the wrong thing for a while was because we found a virus and then it turned out to be a normal virus.”

So, they really do not know much, especially a baseline of what is normal.

“It is possible that warmer water temperatures combined with other ecological and evolutionary factors led to this devastating outbreak and die-off,” she wrote in an email, “but we don’t have that evidence definitively yet.”

So, they really do not know much, but, they’re happy to drag ‘climate change’ into it. I wonder though, has this happened in previous warm periods? Or, when the Earth was much, much warmer and the seas much, much higher?

Read: “Scientists” Sorta Maybe Possibly Link Starfish Die-Offs To Climate Doom »

Of course, if this was true, they’d all be waiting a long time due to the illegal aliens jamming up the ERs in the People’s Republik Of California

Climate Change Will Send Many More Californians to the ER

California’s emergency departments will be more clogged than ever as climate change pushes daily temperatures higher, a study finds.

But there is one silver lining to the new research, however: Thousands of fewer deaths in California from extreme cold.

Nevertheless, high temperatures will also be flooding hospitals with patients as heat triggers injuries and worsens chronic health issues.

“Heat can harm health even when it doesn’t kill,” explained study first author Carlos Gould, assistant professor of public health at the University of California San Diego. “Warmer temperatures were consistently associated with more trips to the emergency department, so studies and planning that only consider mortality [death] miss a big slice of the burden.”

It’s on average 1.7F higher than it was in 1850. Can anyone tell the difference?

Working alongside researchers at Stanford University, Gould’s team looked at data on deaths, emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations and daily temperatures in California from 2006 to 2017.

The good news: projecting the health-related effects of climate change to 2050, California should expect to see around 53,500 fewer deaths overall due to less cold weather, the data showed.

So, are they say fewer deaths is a good thing or bad thing by 2050?

Of course, heatstroke is the effect that most people might associated with extreme heat. But many ED visits will be due to other heat-linked events or conditions: injuries, mental health issues and poisonings, especially.

“We often think about only the most extreme health impacts of heat waves: deaths. This work is showing that many things that we may not think about being sensitive to extreme heat are, like poisonings, endocrine disorders, injuries and digestive issues,” said study co-author Alexandra Heaney.

“We need to focus on the full spectrum of health impacts when we think about heat waves, now and in the future,” said Heaney, who is assistant professor of public health at UCSD.

So, give us money. For a whopping 1.7F in 175 years.

Read: Your Fault: More PRC Comrades Will Go To ER From Atmospheric Cancer »