Guest “We don’t need no stinking null hypothesis” by David Middleton
Deadly marine ‘cold spells’ could become more frequent with climate change, scientists warn
Die-off in South Africa leads to investigation of changing ocean conditions
15 APR 2024
In March 2021, a grisly scene materialized on the beaches of South Africa. Giant bat-winged manta rays sprawled belly up on rocks. Hulking bull sharks lay dead in the sand. Puffer fish littered shorelines like deflated footballs.
Such fish kills are usually triggered by hot water, low oxygen, or toxic algae blooms. But this time it was a surprising culprit. In the middle of the southern summer, these fish died of cold—a phenomenon that may be linked to climate change, according to a new paper.
[…]
Weather and ocean conditions converged off South Africa with chilling results starting in late February 2021. Temperature data from satellites and buoys revealed that a large southbound eddy moving through the region, coupled with 4 days of strong easterly winds, fueled strong upwelling. Ocean surface temperatures along parts of the South African coast plunged by more than 7°C in 48 hours to as cold as 10°C. At one underwater temperature tracker near Port Alfred, on South Africa’s southeastern shore, temperatures fell by more than 9°C in a single day. The upwelling covered 230 kilometers of the ocean and lasted for a week.
[…]
It’s hard to say with certainty that the trend is driven by climate change, in part because these upwellings are so localized that they aren’t well represented in models looking at interactions between the ocean and climate, says David Schoeman, a marine climate change ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast who worked on the paper. But the trends are consistent with predictions of how climate change will…
When every paradoxical observation is consistent with your hypothesis, it has become unfalsifiable and no longer retains a null hypothesis. This is whow hypotheses become quasi-religions.
The “new paper” is paywalled. Here’s the best line from the abstract:
Increasing upwelling could result in ‘bait and switch’ situations, where climate change expands subtropical species’ distribution, while simultaneously exposing climate migrants to an increased risk of cold-mortality events at poleward distributional limits.
: a sales tactic in which a customer is attracted by the advertisement of a low-priced item but is then encouraged to buy a higher-priced one
2
: the ploy of offering a person something desirable to gain favor (such as political support) then thwarting expectations with something less desirable
Who would have ever guessed that the climate was capable of engaging in deceptive sales practices? Maybe it’s the climate “scientists” who are baiting and switching:
“In March 2021, a grisly scene materialized on the beaches of South Africa. Giant bat-winged manta rays sprawled belly up on rocks. Hulking bull sharks lay dead in the sand. Puffer fish littered shorelines like deflated footballs.”
“Weather and ocean conditions converged off South Africa with chilling results starting in late February 2021.”
“It’s hard to say with certainty that the trend is driven by climate change…”
“Deadly marine ‘cold spells’ could become more frequent with climate change, scientists warn”
Familiar pattern?
Start with a negative observation (like lots of dead fish).
Link it to a weather-related event.
Postulate a link to climate change.
Declare that future climate change will make this more frequent and/or worse.
The lame-stream media, UN bureaucrats, and left-wing politicians will blame every bad weather-related event on ExxonMobil and it will only get worse unless we undiscover fire and immediately forsake capitalism.
Upwelling and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
What is upwelling?
Upwelling is a process in which deep, cold water rises toward the surface.
This graphic shows how displaced surface waters are replaced by cold, nutrient-rich water that “wells up” from below. Conditions are optimal for upwelling along the coast when winds blow along the shore.
Winds blowing across the ocean surface push water away. Water then rises up from beneath the surface to replace the water that was pushed away. This process is known as “upwelling.”
Upwelling occurs in the open ocean and along coastlines. The reverse process, called “downwelling,” also occurs when wind causes surface water to build up along a coastline and the surface water eventually sinks toward the bottom.
Water that rises to the surface as a result of upwelling is typically colder and is rich in nutrients. These nutrients “fertilize” surface waters, meaning that these surface waters often have high biological productivity. Therefore, good fishing grounds typically are found where upwelling is common.
While this example is for the Pacific Northwest USA, if there’s a global climate change effect on upwelling, it probably would show up here:
Upwelling Index
The Upwelling Index identifies the amount of surface water transported offshore using geostrophic wind approximations calculated from surface atmospheric pressure fields measured and reported by the U.S. Navy Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic Center (FNMOC) in Monterey, California. The Upwelling Index can fluctuate yearly due to atmospheric shifts in pressure systems (Figure CU-02).
Figure CU-02. Annual anomalies of the coastal Upwelling Index from May to September 1946 – present. Strong positive anomalies reflect years with above-average water upwelled (blue lines), and alternatively, negative anomalies reflect years when upwelled waters were below average (red lines). Credit: NOAA FisheriesNOAA
Upwelling actually mitigates the effects of El Niño-driven ocean heat waves…
Abstract
Marine heatwaves are triggering coral bleaching events and devastating coral populations globally, highlighting the need to identify processes promoting coral survival. Here, we show that acceleration of a major ocean current and shallowing of the surface mixed layer enhanced localized upwelling on a central Pacific coral reef during the three strongest El Niño–associated marine heatwaves of the past half century. These conditions mitigated regional declines in primary production and bolstered local supply of nutritional resources to corals during a bleaching event. The reefs subsequently suffered limited post-bleaching coral mortality. Our results reveal how large-scale ocean-climate interactions affect reef ecosystems thousands of kilometers away and provide a valuable framework for identifying reefs that may benefit from such biophysical linkages during future bleaching events.
Fox et al., 2023 demonstrated that over the past half-century, the effects of the three strongest El Niño-driven heat waves were mitigated by enhanced upwelling.
Lubitz et al, 2024 speculated that a climate change-related ocean heat wave caused localized upwelling and a “deadly marine cold spell,” killing lots of rays, puffer fish and bull sharks. Oddly enough, this “deadly marine cold spell” occurred early in the 2021-2023 La Niña:
And La Niña events are associated with the exact sort of upwelling (Benguela system, southwest coast) that Lubitz et al, 2024 tried to pin on climate change:
La Niña austral summers were associated with stronger upwelling favorable southeasterly winds and colder-than-normal coastal SST at the west and south coast of South Africa. In comparison, El Niño weakened the upwelling favorable southeasterly winds leading to less upwelling and warmer-than-normal coastal SST.
While cold events in the Agulhas system (southeast coast) are local, driven by winds and currents and routinely caused “deadly cold spells”.
Abstract
Strong upwelling events inshore of the Agulhas Current close to 33.5°S are investigated. These events are important to the exchange of shelf and slope waters, potentially enhancing primary productivity and advecting larvae offshore. Using hydrographic observations, this study shows that a wind-driven upwelling event and a current-driven upwelling event can each advect central waters more than 130 m upward, resulting in a maximum 9°C cooling at 50-m depth over the continental shelf and surface cooling greater than 4°C. The authors use satellite data to assess the frequency and forcing mechanisms of similar cold events from January 2003 through December 2011, defining cold events as days when the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly is significantly correlated with a local current or wind forcing. The authors identify 47 events with an average length of 2.2 days and SST anomaly of −1.6°C, corresponding to an average 13 days of surface cold events along the Agulhas Current front per year. This study uses combined EOF analysis to characterize these cold events based on four highly correlated forcing mechanisms: alongshore wind speed, wind stress curl, current meandering, and current speed over the slope. The authors find that meanders act in combination with upwelling-favorable winds to force the strongest cold events, while upwelling-favorable winds alone, possibly primed by Ekman veering, force weaker cold events. Most significantly, it is found that the frontal curvature of warm Agulhas Current meanders couples with the atmosphere to drive local wind stress curl anomalies that reinforce upwelling.
Leber et al., 2017 made no mention of climate change. Oddly enough, it was cited in Lubitz et al, 2024.
Real science leads to the conclusion that the “deadly marine cold spell” was related to the ENSO, local oceanographic & weather patterns, not terribly uncommon and that marine upwelling is normal and good. “Bait and switch science” speculates that the “deadly marine cold spell” was caused by anthropogenic global warming and that further use of fossil fuels will increase the frequency of such “grisly scene[s].”
References
Fox, Michael D. et al., Ocean currents magnify upwelling and deliver nutritional subsidies to reef-building corals during El Niño heatwaves.Sci. Adv.9,eadd5032(2023).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.add5032
Leber, G. M., L. M. Beal, and S. Elipot, 2017: Wind and Current Forcing Combine to Drive Strong Upwelling in the Agulhas Current. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 47, 123–134, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-16-0079.1.
Lubitz, N., Daly, R., Smoothey, A.F. et al. Climate change-driven cooling can kill marine megafauna at their distributional limits. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01966-8
Rouault, M., and F. S. Tomety, 2022: Impact of El Niño–Southern Oscillation on the Benguela Upwelling. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 52, 2573–2587, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0219.1.
I want to try!
1. My wife and daughter are very upset with each other right now.
2. It’s been muggy and overcast lately, making them more grumpy than usual.
3. Trends in humidity and cloud cover may be linked to climate change.
4. We are likely to experience greater family conflicts in the future as climate change worsens.
For absolutely no reason tell your daughter she’s pretty and ask your wife if she has lost weight. If she’s skinny, admire her curves out loud. If you can’t find anything good to say, get a new wife.
always curious why? BP deepcycle solar gelcells were stopped just as rooftop pv ramped up?
they cost about the same as local made leadacid deepstorage ones , and were popular with offgrid people
Jim Masterson
April 17, 2024 7:28 pm
A high school diploma is almost automatic except for Greta. She not only dropped out of school, but is ignorant of the basic three R’s. She knows this climate nonsense is a scam. All she wants is fame and notoriety.
As reported, $10M to $15M of that is from her parents.
Amazing how much she makes considering she does not work and claims to not accept money for her advocacy.
Greta Thunberg
Born January 3, 2003
Dropped out of school August 20, 2018 (age 15)
Got her HS diploma June 9, 2023 (age 20)
hdhoese
April 17, 2024 7:43 pm
Leber, et al., 2017, is an interesting paper which actually relied on hydrographic transects and lamented the necessary use of satellites. They could have done a little more history as this is about one the most famous and difficult areas oceanographers used to have to learn about and the whole history of difficult sailing through Cape of Good Hope westerlies to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Günter Dietrich was the author of several papers on German oceanographic expeditions, the first in 1935 (79pp.) on the Agulhas-Stromgebietes (current area), later ones in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean. It was covered extensively in Maury’s (1855) Physical Oceanography of the Sea and its Meteorology.
In Ekman’s Zoogeography of the Sea (first published in 1953, p 188) is an interesting sentence. “This warm current [Agulhas formed from the Mozambique] which is so strong (at times almost 7km an hour) that vessels proceeding westwards make use of it enable them to counter the strong westerly gales, meets the cold West Wind Drift off the western border of the Agulhas bank and is split by it. The result is a more violent mixture of cold and warm water than exists anywhere in other oceanic regions.” Lots of literature from there about sharks and others and upwelling, and this is about as strange as it gets. It is often associated with high production and sometimes mass mortality and takes real measurements to understand. Wait until they discover the closer to home Straits of Messina. Cold probably kills more fish than heat.
Bull sharks will do fine, new paper out from Germany on their worldwide distribution in freshwater. Manta Rays are more in demand.
Maybe somebody reading this who has been through or worked there could elaborate.
There are actually two Ekmans, never checked ancestry. Thanks, didn’t know about the scan, had it also a decade before. Lots of scans, but easy to fill up a computer. I don’t know how current workers handle the need to obtain the important part of the mass of information from different sources, maybe if you’re trained from birth. Weird currents are not well researched, many are short lived and not likely to be encountered. Satellites help on the surface but were correctly cautioned by old-timers when they started, kind of like statistics a long time before. Somehow the world does not seem virtual.
According to Stevens, 2018, et al. Guide to Manta and Devil Rays, the gill plates are big medicinal business in East Asia, maybe similar to shark-fin soup. It’s a big ocean, but bigger species are susceptible and the hyperbole doesn’t help.
Jim Masterson
April 17, 2024 9:12 pm
I greatly dislike Greta. She is a total loser. Even Peter Gunn would Eschew her.
I was dealing with the draft at the time (the Vietnam War was waging). I dodged the draft by joining the Navy. Go ahead, and call me a traitor–they did that to President Bush.
As is often attributed to P.T. Barnum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
So you’re saying that conning people is more valuable than working honestly and hard during your life. I haven’t tried to ruin the economies of the free world and tried to establish Communist governments. In fact, I swore allegiance to the US Constitution and served in its military.
I bet our ancestors knew which direction warmer climes were and, therefore, where colder climes are. But Nature can change stuff in moments without any warning and then it is just a struggle for survival of at least one in the tribe or group. The same equation persists regardless of the odd 1C up or down, here or there. Courts of Stupidity may rule upon responsibility for climate fitness but Mother isn’t listening to them and will not ever be doing so.
Low IQ humans only fool themselves and the feeble minded and they wouldn’t even be around if it hadn’t been for fossil fuel. Perhaps natural disaster days are precisely what is needed to teach them some common sense.
Richard Greene
April 18, 2024 2:40 am
10 yard penalty for Chrles for adding a Greta photo to the beginning of the article … almost as bad as a Joe Bribe’em photo or a Hitler photo
It seems like leftists have a Blame List for every real or imaginary bad news event or anything unusual:
Climate Change did it
Greedy capitalists
Big Oil
Donald Trump
MAGA white supremacists
Russians
The ultimate leftist goal is to blame as many from the list as possible, and here is tomorrow’s NY Times headline and article:
The unprecedented heavy rains in Delhi, India yesterday were due to unprecedented climate change.
Climate change is out of control, and worse than previously thought, because of greedy capitalists, such as Big Oil, and their insurrectionist leader Donald Trump, with 91 felony indictments and soon to be in prison for life, who, along with his extremist MAGA white supremacist cult, is colluding with Russia, once again, because Russia is a major exporter of deadly carbon fuels.
But if we want to know the real reason for the perturbation in the Southern Ocean currents, look no further than atmospheric physics and cause and effect. The 2019-2020 Australian Brushfires were as powerful as an SO2 laden stratovolcano eruption with its short-term climatic impact. The amount of black carbon particulates that reached the Stratosphere were significant and caused numerous deaths and destruction worldwide for years, including the 2021 Texas freeze.
So, the simple solution to catastrophic global warming is to burn all the forests at once.
Don’t worry about the consequences. After all we are on the precipice.
Insanity indeed, my greatest contribution to the insanity, is to educate the youngsters, that in this day and age, the correct answer that aces the test, often has little or nothing to do with the truth (Academia). Unless you are building something that someone is paying for, then no-one cares about peer-review(The real world).
Talk about hyperbole. I searched quite awhile for photo evidence of what sounds like a massive fish kill in 2021. I found a photo of 1 dead manta ray, a few photos of single dead sharks, etc. I expected photos of beaches littered with carcasses if this were such an ecological disaster. I found a list of the dead creatures, and the numbers were underwhelming.
