Extreme Weather amd the Bay

An interesting article on how "extreme" weather can produce changes in the Bay, for both good and ill.  Of course, the subtext, not particularly well hidden is that "climate change" will produce more extreme events.  This thesis has not been demonstrated and in fact, there appears to be no trend in hurricanes or tornadoes with increased temperatures in recent years.

Extreme Weather: A Mixed Bag for Dead Zones

This year’s extreme weather events—a warm winter, even warmer summer, and a drought that covered nearly two-thirds of the continental United States—has certainly caused its fair share of damages. But despite the crop failures, water shortages, and heat waves, extreme weather created at least one benefit: smaller dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico.

On a normal year, rain washes pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorous from farms and urban areas into the two bodies of water, fueling algae growth. When this algae dies, it consumes oxygen and creates hypoxic areas, or “dead zones,” which can kill fish and other marine life. Less rain this year meant fewer pollutants making their way into the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico. The Chesapeake Bay’s summer dead zone was the smallest since record-keeping began in 1985, and the Gulf of Mexico’s covered one of the smallest areas on record.

But It’s Not All Good News

Which isn’t to say that extreme weather and climatic events decrease the incidence of dead zones overall. In fact, in some cases, extreme weather and climatic events can actually exacerbate dead zones in lakes and oceanic ecosystems...

Well yes, low runoff (drought years) tends to be good for the restraining the growth of anoxia in the Bay, and hurricanes and tropical storms that produce massive runoff can produce extremely bad years for anoxia.

But what really struck me about this article was the accompanying photo, (right), which is cited as an example of a nutrient induce algae bloom. The title of the photo is algae bloom.jpg.

However, the green coating on the pond, in all likelihood, is not algae, but rather duckweed, which is a small flowering, seed bearing plant  (in fact, the duckweeds are the smallest such complex plants). This is not a big deal scientifically, duckweeds grow in response to nutrient pollutuion too, but as an example for the Bay, it is entirely inappropriate, as it is exclusively a freshwater organism, and not found in anything but the freshest backwaters of the bay system.

It totally undercuts the scientific credibility of the remainder of the article.