Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
The water temperatures are getting colder, and for sea turtles, this could be bad news. If a sea turtle ends up in water that's 10 C or below, it could become cold-stunned, which is similar to hypothermia but for turtles, according to April Nason, the education and outreach co-ordinator for the Canadian Sea Turtle Network in Nova Scotia.
When water temperatures get too hot, fish can become stressed or even die. In rivers, Atlantic salmon and other cold-water species sometimes escape the heat by flocking to cooler areas, which often arise near groundwater springs or relatively cool tributaries. Lots of work has been done to preserve and augment these naturally occurring refuges, said Smith, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, “but there hasn’t really been an emphasis or focus on if we can create cold-water habitat.”
The carcasses of 120 river dolphins have been found floating in a tributary of the Amazon River over the last week in circumstances that experts suspect were caused by severe drought and heat. Low river levels during a severe drought have heated water in stretches to temperatures that are intolerable for the dolphins, researchers believe. Thousands of fish have died recently on Amazon rivers due to a lack of oxygen in the water.
It's been well documented that ocean temperatures have been on the rise across the globe for the past few decades. However what's happening with the warming waters in the North Atlantic over the past few weeks has the science community buzzing. Temperatures in the North Atlantic are warming at new record levels this spring, based on data compiled by NOAA satellites and produced by the University of Maine. In early June, sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic were as warm as 0.5 degrees above the previous record and more than one degree above the 1982-2011 average.
As icebergs drifted by his Antarctica-bound ship, David Holland spoke this week of how the melting glacier he's cruising towards may contain warning signals for the coasts of far-off Canada. The atmospheric and ocean scientist from Newfoundland is part of an expedition to one of the world's most frigid and remote spots -- the Thwaites glacier in the western portion of the continent -- where he'll measure water temperatures in an undersea channel the size of Manhattan.
New data shows that water temperatures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have reached record highs, with experts warning the increase could impact some species that live in the waters. According to new research, published Tuesday by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, warming ocean temperatures -- specifically those in deep water -- set more records in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2021 than in the past 40 years.
Dangerously high water temperatures have closed several salmon angling rivers in Newfoundland and Labrador as officials watch water levels and salmon mortality rates across the province. According to a media release issued this week by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, eight rivers were closed to day anglers due to rising water temperatures over a three-day period. The rivers range across angling zones 5 and 6, including rivers in Port Blandford, Trinity Bay, Alexander Bay, Trinity Bonavista Bay and Indian Bay, A full list of closures can be found in the 2021 Anglers' Guide.
