In some yucky news that may catch more attention than mere Pacific Islanders losing their entire homes, jelly fish have shown by their activities to appreciate the new footholds provided by warmer waters and fertilizer enriched waters.

Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, jellyfish swarms are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.

Scientists believe climate change – the warming of oceans – has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes.

The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.

… Increasingly polluted waters – off China, for example – boost growth of the microscopic plankton upon which “jellies” feed, and overfishing has eliminated many of the jellyfish’s predators and cut down on competitors for plankton feed.