You can’t make this stuff up, really. Crab deaths due to cold according to one authority are now being blamed on….drum roll….climate change aka global warming, by another.

“Thousands of dead crabs have washed up along the Kent coast, with environmental experts believing the cold weather in Britain is to blame,” London’s Daily Mail reports. In an MSNBC/LiveScience report, we get the simple explanation. ’tis the snowfall on the beach that melted wot dun it:

“It’s been a phenomenon for probably a third year in a row,” Tony Child, Thanet Coast project manager, told LiveScience.

The crabs come closer to shore at this time of year, Child said, where they feed on the seaweed. In the past, environmental scientists ran tests to check for disease or other physiological problems with the crabs, coming up empty-handed. But Child said every year the die-offs have occurred after there was snow on the beaches. The meltwater causes temperatures near shore to drop, and Child said the deaths must be linked to hypothermia.

Now, get load of this quote from another person in the Daily Mail Article:

“Coastal warden Tony Sykes said: ‘We suspect that climate change and warmer weather has lured the crabs towards the shoreline.”

Warden, what are you smoking dude? Have a look at the SST’s for Britain, what were they doing, swimming towards Spain?

Note the colors around the southeast part of the U.K. – barely above freezing SST’s.

Source: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/fields/FS_km5000.gif

Note the quote:

It’s been a phenomenon for probably a third year in a row,” Tony Child, Thanet Coast project manager, told LiveScience.

Hmmm….now what could possibly have happened in the UK during the last three winters? BBQ Summers?

Here’s the press release from the Thanet Coast Project:

Marine wildlife hit by cold weather

Around 25,000 velvet swimming crabs and marine wildlife have become the latest victim of the recent cold weather in Thanet.

Volunteer coastal wardens from the Thanet Coast Project have surveyed the coastline and reported hundreds of dead creatures washed up on the shore. Casualties have been reported from the Nayland Rock, Margate and in bays to the Kingsgate area, with further sightings between Dumpton and Ramsgate. The discovery was made following the Christmas period, following on from the recent heavy snow falls.

So this claim from coastal warden Sykes isn’t the same ridiculous claim we’ve been hearing lately, that global warming causes cold weather. Nooo… the problem here seems to be that the crabs made the mistake of believing in global warming.

Here’s the link to the Daily Mail story with the quote.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344242/40-000-devil-crabs-washed-British-beach-freezing-conditions-hypothermia.html

H/T to Mark Duchamp for the email.

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