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Comment by ejb999 | Hacker News Reader

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There's an abnormally large El Nino this year, and it's currently in a transitionary phase: https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/when-will-el-nino-en...

Occam's razor: some warmer (or colder) water ended up somewhere in the Pacific it usually doesn't, and some fish died.

The problem with this theory is that fish can move to fresher water, and they often do.

It's not impossible, and we got recent examples of such events, but calling it Occams Razor is generous.

It's another, decent, working theory.

You're assuming an absolute. If none of the fish had moved to fresher water, I imagine there'd be a lot more fish washing ashore. If all of the fish had moved to fresher water, there would be no fish washing ashore. Also, abnormal ocean currents have caused this before.

It could be a case of correlation not causation

Too early to make a judgement on the validity of the claims as there is not much evidence for

I am not asserting anything Japan is asserting that they have no idea what the problem is, or why it is happening, but after zero investigating, have asserted them dumping radiation into the ocean is not the cause - without any proof.

> have asserted them dumping radiation into the ocean is not the cause - without any proof

Is there a passage in the article that makes this assertion or are you getting it from a different source?

This is unscientific. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

What would be unscientific would be to ignore a plausible theory and not explore it using independent researchers from several sources.

Or forbidding good sarcasm or jokes about it, because I don't know any PHD around me that don't have those in spades.

which claim was made? the only claim I see is Japan asserting that it has nothing to do with the radioactive waste they are dumping into the ocean - I say the burden of proof is on them, since that is the claim they are making.

Where are you seeing Japan making that claim? From the article:

> The report noted that dead fish had begun washing ashore almost four months after the plant began discharging the water – which contains small quantities of the radioactive isotope tritium – into the Pacific.

> But no one has been able to confirm the cause. “The cause is unknown at the moment,” Mikine Fujiwara, a local fisheries official, told the newspaper. “We plan to sample the seawater at the site and examine it to uncover the cause.”

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