238 / Dead Fish

Many thousands of dead fish are washing ashore in the "Delta" of the Tigre and Parana Rivers, just outside of Buenos Aires.

La Nación says that the deaths seem to be caused by a rapid decrease in water temperature. That puzzled me, at first. I would expect that the effects of global warming would be to increase, not decrease, water temperatures.

Then (I think) I figured it out. I have actually been in the Delta, and the waters there are very shallow. Therefore, they are quite warm. And the fish in the Delta like it that way. As global warming happens in the headwaters, more snow is melted sooner, and more water (and probably cooler water) comes down the river, and if the waters are deeper in the Delta, they don't warm up as quickly or as much.

The result? You can see it in the image: dead fish.

The effects of global warming in the Himalayas will be to create more scenes like this. But it won't be pictures of dead fish. It will be pictures of dead people.