Slashdot Mirror


It's So Cold Outside That Sharks Are Actually Freezing to Death (vice.com)

An anonymous reader writes: As climate change ushers in another year of extreme global temperatures -- a phenomenon President Trump seems a little confused about -- cities up and down the East Coast are facing record-breaking snowfall and subzero temperatures. But while city dwellers might be able to hide indoors and crank up the heat, some animals aren't so lucky. According to the Cape Cod-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, it's gotten so cold that sharks in the area have been washing up on the shore and essentially freezing to death. This week, the organization responded to three thresher sharks that likely suffered "cold shock" in the surrounding waters. Organisms suffer cold shock when they're exposed to extreme dips in temperature and can sometimes experience muscle spasms or cardiac arrest. Scientists believe the sharks swimming off the coast of Cape Cod -- where temperatures have dropped to 6 degrees -- suffered cold shock in the water, and then wound up getting stranded on the shore, where they likely suffocated. "If you've got cold air, that'll freeze their gills up very quickly," Greg Skomal, a marine scientist, told the New York Times. "Those gill filaments are very sensitive and it wouldn't take long for the shark to die."

3 of 424 comments (clear)

  1. It's the environmentalists fault by ilsaloving · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's all the environmentalists fault. If they had simply stuck with global warming, we wouldn't be having this problem. But nooooo, they had to change it to "Climate Change", which opened us up to wild swings in temperature in both directions.

    I considered overly hot summers to be an acceptable tradeoff for having mild or almost non-existent winters. But now we have to deal with stupidly hot summers AND stupidly cold winters.

    Go back to global warming!

  2. Re:And? by dlleigh · · Score: 5, Funny

    The lasers have gotten too efficient. There used to be enough waste heat to keep the sharks from freezing, but not anymore.

    This is another unintended consequence of the environmental movement demanding energy efficiency, but not considering everyone who would be affected by their policies.

  3. Re:And? by JackieBrown · · Score: 2, Funny

    You would think there would be a mention of lasers somewhere in the post. It is Slashdot after all.

    I guess they couldn't work that in and their a dig at Trump.