Huge Mass Of Hot Water In The Ocean Killed One Million Birds
Huge Mass Of Hot Water In The Ocean Killed One Million Birds A study by the University of Washington in the US points out that a giant body of hot water formed in the ocean in the North Pacific in the summer of 2015, causing as many as a million seabirds to starve to death.
The research covers bird deaths seen from the summer of 2015 to the spring of the following year.
The dead of seabirds doesn’t normally hit the shore. However, during this period, a total of 62 thousand birds struck the shores of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California.
Only in Prince William Strait in southern Alaska, more than 4,500 birds per kilometer were reported to have shot dead. Experts estimate the number of birds killed is around a million.
One Million Square Kilometers Of Mass
The hot water body called “Stain” is caused by the long-term wave of heat.
This is thought to be caused by an anticyclone system first seen in 2013.
The weather phenomenon, known as El Nino, accelerated the temperature rise from 2015 to 2016, with water temperatures rising six degrees above normal during that period.
The anticyclone is formed by cooling and compressing an air mass and increasing its density. As a result, the weight of the atmosphere and the air pressure on the surface increase.
Heat maps from this period showed that the area covered by the hot water body reached one million square kilometers.
Most of the dying birds are diver gulls native to North America.
These birds need to eat half their body weight to survive.
However, because warming ocean waters speed up the metabolism of fish such as salmon and flounder, these birds have difficulty finding small fish.
