The slow demise of a stray whale that spent its last days circling Osaka Bay not only saddened TV viewers across Japan, it also alarmed cetacean experts who called the whale the latest casualty of a warming planet.
“Whales used to lose their way every three years or so,” Yasunobu Nabeshima, a visiting researcher at the Osaka Museum of Natural History, told CBS News. “Until now it was a rare phenomenon. But these incidents have increased.”
This month’s tragedy marked the second case in as many years.
Nabeshima said global warming has reduced the temperature differential between the Pacific Ocean and Osaka Bay, rendering the powerful Kuroshio Current “a warm-water conveyor belt” that propels whales from their usual deep ocean haunts into the shallow waters along the coast.
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The slow demise of a stray whale that spent its last days circling Osaka Bay not only saddened TV viewers across Japan, it also alarmed cetacean experts who called the whale the latest casualty of a warming planet.
“Whales used to lose their way every three years or so,” Yasunobu Nabeshima, a visiting researcher at the Osaka Museum of Natural History, told CBS News. “Until now it was a rare phenomenon. But these incidents have increased.”
This month’s tragedy marked the second case in as many years.
Nabeshima said global warming has reduced the temperature differential between the Pacific Ocean and Osaka Bay, rendering the powerful Kuroshio Current “a warm-water conveyor belt” that propels whales from their usual deep ocean haunts into the shallow waters along the coast.
**Read more:** [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japan-osaka-bay-stranded-whale-death-alarm-climate-change/?ftag=CNM-05-10abh9g](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japan-osaka-bay-stranded-whale-death-alarm-climate-change/?ftag=CNM-05-10abh9g)