‘Heat dome’ probably killed 1bn marine animals on Canada coast, experts say | Hacker News Reader

‘Heat dome’ probably killed 1bn marine animals on Canada coast, experts say

theguardian.com

79 pointsnickcotter15 comments

Not a biologist, but I have a metrics question that is suited for someone that is familiar with the biology literature:

How useful of a metric is "number of animals killed?" I don't mean to trivialize the death of 1bn organisms, but I cannot put this number in context, and I don't even know entirely what qualifies as an animal. Somebody ought to remember the bugs.

Is there a more useful metric to capture widespread mortality across all animals or all life? Biomass maybe?

% of organisms seems like the right place to start

Well according to Google, one anchovy school can contain up to 100 million fish, so 1bn marine animals could mean all the whales died or ten schools of anchovies.

Without further information, I'm unsure what to make of the metric. Of course, microscopic animals are also animals, and important parts of the food chain, but 1billion zooplankton probably would be smaller than the anchovy schools.

I think "1bn" it makes for an attention getting but not an especially useful headline.

It seems like the real story is that mussels can't survive more than a few hours at 40 degrees and died en masse. This has many ripple effects in the ecosystem.

- mussels are a primary food source for many species, like sea stars

- their shells are used as habitats by hermit crabs and other crustaceans and worms

- they help filter the water and keep it clear.

- low oxygen in the water as they decompose

This isn't a longitudinal study, 1bn is just back of napkin math, but it sounds like it is fair to assume that there will be dramatically reduced biodiversity and biomass in the area for years to come. And if another such anomalous temperature event takes place in the next few years it will compound the issue.

Like all metrics, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

As others have said, the marine bio systems contains organisms from unicellular to whale scale. For most purposes a count is meaningless.

For a headline, you need a heart-tugging number.

The mass death of shellfish would temporarily affect water quality because mussels and clams help filter the sea, Harley said, keeping it clear enough that sunlight reaches the eelgrass beds while also creating habitats for other species.

This is very concerning to me, seagrass is an excellent carbon sink.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/sea...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64094-1

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/underwater-mea...

>Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

We're destroying the planet, but at least we have cheap consumer goods. Future generations (if there are any) will look very poorly upon us. We're fine with any level of environmental destruction because we believe the future always gets better. We implicitly believe that some future genius will invent a solution to climate change that doesn't involve any sacrifice from us. We can't keep assuming a magic solution is going to drop in our lap, we need to start fixing the biosphere now.

What I'm curious about is whether anyone is even working on theoretical versions of such "magic" solutions. I think the public and even governments have some expectation that "someone" is working on solutions that don't require sacrifice - but are we?

“The nerdy ecologist part of me is excited to see what will happen in the coming years,” said Harley. “But most of the rest of me is kind of depressed by it. A lot of species are not going to be able to keep up with the pace of change. Ecosystems are going to change in ways that are really difficult to predict. We don’t know where the tipping points are."

It might actually be quite fascinating to document the butterfly effect from this die-off. If you keep an aquarium jar, the unpredictability of booms & busts triggered by die offs are really interesting.

Damage is how we think of it, because it's detrimental to us or things we care about. To the ecosystem, it's change.

exactly, when we cook food, we're not damaging it we're just making various foods easier to consume.

Maybe this global warming, climate change is just like cooking food.

What happened to the concept of planting a trillion trees?

It seems so simple, and with enough effort could be done quickly.

I planted about 200 trees last year. It did take effort, but it was not quick.

I also had to carry water to them every day during the drought to keep them alive....

I am assuming it would use tax dollars and farming techniques.

approximately 130 trees per person on the planet :|

Planting a trillion trees alone won't solve climate change, we really need a reduction in fossil fuel use.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27052020/trillion-trees-c...

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