NEW YORK, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- About half of Alaska's common murres, some four million birds, died as a result of the marine heat wave, scientists have found.
They believe it is the largest documented die-off of a single species of wild birds or mammals. The state is home to about a quarter of the world's common murres, The New York Times on Thursday cited the scientists.
Murres were the victims of a domino effect of oceanic changes tied to the warm water, according to a growing body of research. It affected marine life from plankton to humpback whales. Critically for the murres, it led to a collapse in the fish they depend on, according to the report.
It became clear that the culprit was a record-breaking marine heat wave, a mass of warm water that would come to be known as the Blob. New findings on its effect on murres, published on Thursday in the journal Science, are a stark sign of the perils facing ecosystems in a warming world. "One of the most sobering revelations in the new study is that the birds have not even begun to rebound," it noted.
For decades, the world's oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat produced as humans burn fossil fuels and destroy ecosystems like forests. That heat has taken a severe toll on coral reefs, kelp forests and other marine ecosystems. Last year and into this year, the ocean's surface temperature shattered records, according to the report.
