March 5, 2018 — NEW BRUNSWICK, Canada — It is in the upper reaches of Canada’s Bay of Fundy where nature flexes its tidal muscles while sending a surge of 160 billion tons of seawater in and out of the funnel-shaped bay. That mass moves in with the force equal to that of 8,000 locomotive engines, scouring nutrients from the ocean bottom, the tidal flats and marshes, while stirring up a smorgasbord of food for the whales, waterfowl, fish and seafloor dwellers that make this rich fishery their home.
The tides, the highest in the world, are equal in height to a five-story building when they play out in their most extreme manner. With two high tides and two low tides each day, that mega-slosh of water, a volume greater than the combined flow of all of the freshwater rivers on the planet, refreshes and invigorates the Bay of Fundy, which joins the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park among the seven wonders of North America.
And also, it is in this bay where the warming of the planet’s oceans could be showing its hand.
Donald Killorn is the executive director at Eastern Charlotte Waterways Inc., an environmental resource and research center located in Blacks Harbour, not far from where the Bay of Fundy merges into the adjoining and much wider Gulf of Maine. Mr. Killorn says these waters, the fishery and the impact they are experiencing because of a rising water temperature brought on by climate change know no international boundary.
“The temperature change we are experiencing here in the Bay of Fundy and in the Gulf of Maine is as severe as anywhere on the planet, and it is having a significant impact on the biodiversity of these waters,” Mr. Killorn said.
Read the full story at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette