Justin Rowlatt’s Fishy Tale
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
The hysterical Justin Rowlatt continues to catastrophise summer weather!
https://twitter.com/BBCJustinR/status/1675753390079463424?s=20
Note that Rowlatt does not provide any data to compare fish deaths with prior years! It makes you wonder what he is hiding.
Whether it really was the hottest June or not, the temperature for the month as a whole was not exceptional in summer terms, with a mean of 17.0C on CET. In most years it gets hotter in July and August.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html
Since 1659, there have been 127 months with temperatures of 17.0C and higher. If all of these fish deaths really are due to hot weather, then we would expect to see mass die offs every year.
We also know that peak temperatures during the month were not exceptional either, reaching 28.6C. The chart below only runs to 2020, but it confirms that daily temperatures often hit 28C in June:
https://www.ecad.eu/utils/showindices.php
And the BBC cannot blame the die offs on lack of rainfall either:
As many have pointed out to the hysterical Rowlatt, how much of the problem is down to sewage and pollution?
Of course, the BBC is quick to play the pollution card when it suits them!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Alan Patrick on Twitter raises a pertinent point:
“…how come these species all survive in Rest Of Europe which is hotter …”
Is there a sewage spill map similar to the NIRS Incidents – Fish Related one?
This best I could find was this
https://theriverstrust.org/sewage-map
Coupled with the rainfall maps here
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-actual-and-anomaly-maps
It paints an interesting picture, which appears to show that fish and sewage incidents are in the areas that have had the highest rainfall even when it’s been below average. I’d say that sewage and rainfall were heavily involved.
The area office of the Environment Agency usually usually gathers the records: receives the complaint, detects the real cause and litigates against the polluter.
Recent Lincolnshire news about 2018 incident :
“Firm’s £510k bill for River Witham pollution which killed 135,000 fish”
“Around three million litres of liquid fertiliser were released into the River Witham in Lincolnshire in March 2018.
Omex Agriculture Ltd admitted causing the leak, which polluted a 28-mile (46km) stretch to The Wash at Boston.”
So fertilizer was spilled fish died but weather played little part
except I guess more rain would mean quicker dilution.
One of those map dots is the incident in the links below.
The same thing happened in April/May.
The lake constantly suffers oil pollution and blooms of toxic algae. Pollution, lots of sun, algae, low rain, heavy rain etc. all contribute to sudden deoxygenation of the water.
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23621941.fish-removed-worthings-brooklands-park-deaths/
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23492429.dozens-fish-dead-brooklands-park-worthing/
There are other municipal lakes and ponds that were never suitable for fish as they dry up nearly every year or are fed by toxic runoff. Of course people release lots of fish in them and then periodically they all die!
Over fishing perhaps?
M’kay, limnologist me here to point out the obvious: fish live in the water. Not the air.
Funny that there are no cases in the East or West of England – so it can’t be temperature.
River levels are very low in Devon, but no cases identified in Devon this year. The last mass fish kill occurred in July 2019 in the River Mole, caused by a digestate spill from the Anaerobic Digester plant.
Unfortunately I saw Rowlatt on the BBC lunchtime news. He really is an ignoramus, full of propaganda and empty of evidence.
Rowlett is a total moran who just makes sh-t up.
I dont see the environment agency attributing deaths to the weather – only Rowlett.
The temp of the rivers is still quite cool and not nearly as warm as it gets to in August. I know as i swim in the Thames regularly. Its still at wetsuit temps. In august it reaches a swim in trunks temp.
There is zero evidence to link fish deaths to a warmer June temp and Rowlett needs to be fired for being a grade A deceiver and liar.
Complaints to BBC required as he posted under his BBC address. BBC need to fire this idiot who brings them into disrepute for employing a compulsive liar.
Do we have any correlating evidence in the form of water temperatures?
Twitter no longer allows people who are not logged into Twitter to see embedded tweets
but here is a thread where activists discuss many water courses where fish died.
Of course if the EA or Canal Trust have not done their job properly and fish have died
… they can always try blaming Climate Change
Look at Rowlatt’s wooly jumper he wore for his “Hottest June evah” report from the Knowle Locks Canal today
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F0HCIsxWYAAZkVB?format=jpg&name=orig
Nothing dies from a higher average temperature. And that’s all June was – a higher average. Having say 20 days instead of 15 at 25 degrees isn’t even “hotter”. An average isn’t “hotter”. It’s an average, a thing that doesn’t exist as such.
BWTM: same is true with climate. It is the product of human analysis of weather data over time. It doesn’t physically exist.
It is a reification fallacy in climate [s]science[/s] mysticism.
It doesn’t take much digging to establish that water doesn’t de-oxygenate particularly quickly as temperature increases within the range found in UK waters; graph selected at random:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Effect-of-temperature-on-oxygen-solubility-in-water-generated-by-extrapolation-of-data_fig5_7957124
BBC news yesterday broadcast that oxygen levels in an unnamed canal were at 1.7%, someone stated during the item that the levels should be “60% to 100”. I can’t see how water can be 100% oxygen.
… probably Knowle Locks, as per Stewgreen’s post above.
Item on BBC iplayer 03/07 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001njhc/bbc-news-at-ten-03072023 approx 7 mins 55 seconds in, recording turns to dust at 1030pm this evening.
it can be seen on the archive click the 10:09pm video frame. On my Android I have to play it on full screen
https://archive.org/details/BBCNEWS_20230703_210000_BBC_News_at_Ten/start/540/end/600
Thanks Stewgreen, is it possible to wind the item back to the start?
They are referring to percent saturation. Dissolved Oxygen (DO) saturation is considered to be 5 ppm (parts per million). ❤ ppm is considered problematic for fish.
The sewage theory is best, per Ockham. Sewage creates a radical increase in Biological Oxygen Demand, quickly reducing DO below minimum for fish survival.
'BBC news yesterday broadcast that oxygen levels in an unnamed canal were at 1.7%'
BBC reporting percent saturation is a goofball metric. Biologists referring to DO for support of life in water use ppm universally. Reporting on a fish kill, they should be using ppm. But using cubic elephants is expected from them.
Interesting. Less than sign, < , and the digit 3 is translated a heart symbol.
Trying it again: ❤
Thanks Gamecock. Reading around the subject, it appears that 1 ppm = 1 mg/L and that saturation point varies with temperature, pressure and salinity.
Mr Rowlatt visited a canal. Without even looking it up I guess that the canal system was preserving water and thus was not free flowing and being early July probably not as busy with boats as it might be. Therefore stagnant water with the sun shining will warm up.
@ doran435
My guess is that canal water at this time of year would struggle to reach 20 degrees C , perhaps 9 mg/L dissolved oxygen, as per the graph posted above.
From this link selected at random:
https://www.globalseafood.org/advocate/dissolved-oxygen-requirements-in-aquatic-animal-respiration/
” …. while cold-water fish normally survive at 2.5 to 3.5 mg/L dissolved oxygen “
BBC reports on the pollution incident in the River Mole, completely contradicting Rowlatt’s absurd claims!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-66088798
No it doesn’t, thot was in 2017