California Offshore Disaster, Western Civ to Blame

Yet another ecological disaster is unfolding, this time off the coast of California. [bold added]

(Chronicle graphic)

A climate-related catastrophe off the California coast has resulted in the death of 90% of the kelp from San Francisco to Oregon as an explosion of ravenous urchins devours everything in sight. And it’s happening at the same time native fish in San Francisco Bay are dying out, two studies released Monday documented...

The kelp study, published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, chronicles a dramatic decline in the ocean ecosystem that started in 2013 when millions of sea stars along the coast of California withered and died. Without their main predator, the native kelp-eating purple sea urchin population skyrocketed to 60 times its historic numbers.

That was followed, from 2014 to 2017, by a marine heat wave and an El Niño weather event of unprecedented scale. The ocean heated as much as 6 degrees during that time, and toxic algae formed along the coast, killing many species.

The warm water began killing off the lush forests of bull kelp, and then ravenous urchins finished them off, leaving a barren seascape.

Urchins, urchins everywhere (Chronicle photo)

The sea stars dying in 2013 was the triggering event--scientists aren't certain why--and the article tries to attribute the disaster entirely to climate change. That indeed may turn out to be the case, though it's too bad the writers couldn't get one scientist to go on the record with an unequivocal statement about the sea stars' death. Then the opening sentence could have said "climate-caused catastrophe" instead of "climate-related", but they're counting on readers not noticing.

The go-to villain, Donald Trump, wasn't even in politics in 2013, and we certainly can't blame Barack Obama or Jerry Brown.

Why oh why do these bad things keep happening to California?