Young dolphin dies when it's carried on the beach for people to stroke and take selfies with

The rare species, which quickly dies when out of the water, lay dying on the beach as the crowd continued to take pictures

These are the sickening images that show a young dolphin's last moments before it died of dehydration when it was picked up out of the sea by a crowd.

The mammal was found on an Argentine beach as sunbathers lifted it to take photographs with the animal.

They crowded around it as it squirmed and wriggled but the oblivious selfie-takerscarried on playing with it.

The rare La Plata dolphin, which can live for 20 years, was eventually killed after it became dehydrated out of the water.

Sickeningly, the crowd continued to take pictures of the poor animal as it lay dead on the sandy beach.

Climate: Lobster Shell Disease, Sea Star Epidemic Caused By Warming Waters, Cornell Researchers Confirm

By Samantha Mathewson

Lobsters in some areas of North America have experienced since the 1990s something called "epizootic shell disease," which makes their shells unsightly and difficult to sell.  The condition has devastated lobster fisheries in southern New England, and now the Maine lobster industry may be at risk, too. A new Cornell University study conducted in 2015 suggests that warming ocean temperatures are largely responsible for this epidemic.

Cornell researchers have published two studies detailing how diverse marine organisms -- corals, turtles, lobsters, bivalves, starfish and eelgrasses, for example -- are susceptible to diseases made worse by warming oceans, according to a news release.

The first study warns that warming seas may increase levels of epizootic shell disease in American lobster in the northern Gulf of Maine in 2016. As a result, researchers have developed models that will help better assess species at risk.  

"We can say when these organisms are going to be at risk of disease outbreaks based on temperature projections," Drew Harvell, Cornell professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a co-author of the first study, said in the release.

To better monitor levels of shell disease levels this spring, researchers are teaming up with local scientists who will remain on the look-out for lobsters with deep, dark-colored shell lesions -- the leading symptom of epizootic shell disease.

"Advanced warning of the right conditions for disease allows marine managers to increase surveillance and implement preventive strategies, such as reducing pollution, boat traffic and transmission dangers," Harvell explained in Cornell's release.

The second study provides groundbreaking evidence linking increasing temperatures to the sea star wasting disease plaguing the U.S. West Coast.

"The outbreak occurred during a period of anomalously warm sea water, and stars in the San Juan Islands had a higher disease risk at warmer sites," Harvell, a senior author of the second study, said, adding that while there is no cure for the disease, "not moving stars around is a key recommendation."

Researchers confirmed their findings in a series of lab experiments, from which they found sea stars died faster from the wasting disease when in warmer waters, rather than cooler.

"Future work should investigate whether survivors may have some natural resistance to the disease that might be exploited," Harvell concluded.

Both studies were published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as a marine disease-themed special issue. 

Researchers See Link Between Zika & Global Warming

BY SCOTT HEINS IN NEWS ON FEB 18, 2016 5:00 PM

Earlier this moth, the WHO declared the Zika virus an international public health emergency. The spread has been described as "explosive," and the Organization predicts that as many as four million people could become infected with the disease by year's end. Doctors and scientists have traced an apparent link between the disease in pregnant mothers and microcephaly, a birth defect that causes unusually small heads and brain damage in newborn babies.

Now, some experts are beginning to link the outbreak of Zika and other viral diseases to global warming. Similar to malaria, yellow fever, and dengue, Zika is primarily transmitted by mosquitos that thrive in warm climates.

Zika and dengue are being transmitted by the Yellow Fever mosquito Aedes aegypti. That creature adapted long ago to live in human settlements, and developed a concomitant taste for human blood.

"With rising temperatures, you're actually speeding up the whole reproductive cycle of the mosquitoes," Charles B. Beard told the New York Times. Beard is head of a unit studying insect-borne diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and pointed out the ties between climate change and the spread of dangerous disease. "You get larger populations, with more generations of mosquitoes, in a warmer, wetter climate. you have this kind of amplifaction of the risk."

"The virus has to reproduce in the mosquito for a certain period before it can be transmitted to another person in a subsequent bite. The higher the air temperature, the shorter that incubation period," the Times wrote.

The planet is indeed getting warmer. 2015 was the hottest year in recorded history, with 2016 expected to be even more extreme. As the planet continues to warm up, mosquitos like the ones that carry Zika will reproduce faster, and likely expand into more temperate climates—such as the United States. Research cited by the Times suggests that, if population growth and climate change trends continue to worsen, as many as 8 or 9 billion could be exposed to Zika-carrying mosquitos by the end of the century.

Currently, there have been at least five confirmed cases of human Zika infection in NYC, but in each case the infection happened elsewhere. "We are very concerned about the onset of the mosquito season at the beginning of April," Mayor de Blasio said last week. De Blasio says New York City is prepared to combat a possible outbreak, and cited the Ebola scare of 2014 as a test of the city's readiness. "New Yorkers should rest assured that the finest medical minds and scientific minds are being tapped to help us address the situation," he said.

Anxiety over the dangers of the Zika virus has also had an effect on the Catholic Church. Speaking from his plane Thursday, Pope Francis suggested that using contraception to stop the spread of the virus between infected person is, in the eyes of the church, permissible. "Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil."

New Satellite Collects Sea Level Data to Monitor Climate Change

LOS ANGELES—

Scientists from the U.S. and Europe have a new eye in the sky monitoring the world's oceans.The Jason-3 satellite, launched on January 17, is the latest satellite to monitor rising sea levels. Scientists say data collected by satellites over the last two decades shows sea levels rising at an accelerating rate, which they say is an indicator of climate change.

Josh Willis, Lead Project Scientist for the Jason-3 mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said rising sea levels were one of the factors that contributed to the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Hundreds of people died and the storm surge devastated gulf coast communities as Katrina became one of the deadliest storms in recent U.S. history.

"The rising ocean winds up causing problems when it comes on top of things like storm surges, high tides, and rare events which bring very high sea levels," said Willis.

Jason-3 collects data by pulsing radar off the ocean surface several thousands of times a second and returns it back to the satellite.

"Our satellite records of course only go back about 25 years. But we have measurements of how the oceans have been changing that go back thousands of years and in fact the past 2000 years have been very stable in terms of sea level and climate change. It’s only in the last hundred or so years that rapid sea level rise has begun, driven by the warming of the planet," Willis said. 

Any material, including water, expands when heated. The Jason-3 satellite measures the height of the sea surface, allowing scientists to calculate how much extra heat is stored in the ocean.

Lee-Lueng Fu, the project scientist for the Jason-2 mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the ocean covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases ends up in the ocean.

"So we are entering a very unique time that greenhouse gas is increasing at an unprecedented pace --50 percent increase in less than 150 years so that’s just a fact," he said. "So a lot of warming happening in a very short time and sea level is rising at a pace [that is] very rapid." 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Eric Leuliette said sea levels are an expression of climate change for two reasons.

"One is that excess heat that goes in the ocean is causing the ocean to expand," he said. "On top of that, as the glaciers and ice sheets melt due to global warming nearly all that water runs into the ocean also causing the ocean to rise."

Leuliette said the data collected from the Jason-3 satellite will help them to continue to monitor the global impacts of rising sea levels, including increased floods.The information collected by the satellite will also help meteorologists better forecast the intensity of big storms such as Hurricane Katrina.

 "When hurricane Katrina was passing over we could see the spot of warm water using the Jason data that caused the hurricane to intensify from a category three to a category five hurricane," said Leuliette.

Once the Jason-3 Satellite retires in three to five years, scientists plan to launch another satellite to continue the mission of building a satellite record of sea level rise on Earth.

Report finds whales and dolphins unable to breed due to pollutants

Shannon dolphins and Cork killer whale biopsies contributed to international study

Man-made pollution is affecting the ability of marine mammals such as killer whales and dolphins to breed and may lead to the extinction of some species, according to new international research.

Bottlenose dolphins, striped dolphins and killer whales or orcas are under enormous threat from persistent pollutants such as toxic chemicals, the study involving 31 partners, including in Ireland, found. Some of these pollutants are no longer produced, but are still making their way into the marine environment from landfill leachate, the research published inScientific Reports says.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group’s chief science officer, Dr Simon Berrow, described the findings as “quite shocking”, adding that he had not seen the calf of a killer whale in Irish waters since former taoiseach Charles Haughey declared a sanctuary for whales and dolphins 25 years ago.

He said the focus of environmentalists had switched from pollution to climate change, fishing and seismic surveys. “This study shows the threat pollution poses to our coastal species has not gone away and indeed is far greater than we expected.”

Data collected by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group in Irish waters fed into the research led by Dr Paul Jepson, of the Zoological Society of London.

Biopsy samples taken from the Shannon estuary dolphins showed the lowest levels of contamination in Europe but they were still “well above the toxicity threshold”, Dr Berrow said. Samples from a killer whale stranded in Cork showed some of the highest concentrations recorded for this species in the study, he added.