Climate Change Aids Toxic Slime’s Advance
12:26 minutes
Sewage and fertilizer runoff into China’s Lake Taihu have fed a nasty bloom: an annual explosion of frothy cyanobacteria, which release neurotoxins into the lake. Hans Paerl, a marine and environmental scientist who studies Lake Taihu, says the warmer temperatures brought by climate change only contribute to the slime’s advance.
Hans Paerl is a professor in marine and environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, North Carolina.
Christopher Intagliata was Science Friday’s senior producer. He once served as a prop in an optical illusion and speaks passable Ira Flatowese.