Coral Reefs Create Clouds to Control the Climate

Neil Halelamien writes "New Scientist reports on research showing that coral reefs might cool off by creating their own clouds. The scientists showed that coral reefs are packed with a chemical called DMS, which helps clouds to form when it is released into the atmosphere. In experiments, the researchers have shown that 'corals produce more DMS when the symbiotic algae inside their tissues become stressed by high temperatures or UV radiation,' suggesting that this may be a mechanism corals evolved to help regulate their environment."

Comments

Under the sea . . .

[Leroy_Brown242]

I believe we've completely slacked off at undersea explorations, as a species. So, when scientists find new cool stuff like this, the first thing I think is "You know, this is probably just the shallow end of the pool too, I wish they'd explore more." You never know what secrets to life are out waiting for us in the oceans.

Of course, if we explore it, it'll likely become safer and much easier for the world to exploit and ruin the oceans.

Boy, now I'm all sad n'stuff.

Re:Under the sea . . .

[MoonFog]

It is quite interesting that we can send manned missions to the moon, but not to the bottom of deepest oceans. I know there are different forces involved, but how much do we really know about the sea and the darkness down there?

Re:Under the sea . . .

[Mattcelt]

I heard a quote the other day that only 1% of the earth's oceans have been explored. I'm tempted to say that that was an overstatement.

I know there are different forces involved

Technically, you are incorrect here; it's not different forces, but rather different amounts of the same basic forces. Compared to deep sea exploration, space exploration is easy: in space, most forces we feel here on earth - gravity, atmospheric pressure, earth's magnetism, mantle heat, etc. - are significantly reduced. This makes it simple to sustain life there - simply bring a little bit of those forces with us, enough to keep us alive.

The deep sea, otoh, has all of those forces in much greater quantity. The atmospheric pressure we feel at sea level (about 14.7lbs/in^2, IIRC) doubles every 33ft underwater. Rather than trying to keep a little atmosphere in like we would in space, we're trying to keep a bunch of atmospheres OUT. This is a much more complicated problem, espcially since the most remote parts of the deep ocean are miles below the surface...
in parts of the Mariana Trench, the sea floor is almost 7 miles (35,000 feet/11km) deep, and the pressure is more than 1000 atmospheres (14,000+lbs/in^2!).

This isn't to say that these places can't be explored - obviously they can, as we have sent probes to the bottom of the Mariana Trench - but that it makes it a whole lot more difficult than "just" sending a man to the moon.

DMS and PMS compared

[tod_miller]

Women have the ability to get very cold and produce a cloud that can kill a man using a principle known as PMS.

It is uncertain as to how this can affect the environments, but some studies suggest that many bearded white coats steer clear of such PMS capable females.

Score one for Gaia hypothesis

[PsiPsiStar]

One more point for the strong view of Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, that the earth is a self regulating system that 'deliberatly' seeks homeostasis within a particular range.

Of course, I wonder how selective the strong view of the Gaia hypothesis is... some species produce acid or produce greenhouse gasses... Do these not count because they're just the most efficient way to produce energy and not somthing 'deliberate' on the part of the organism? I'm not sure...

Re:Terraforming.

[skilef]

Recipe for terraforming:

- Find planet
- Create greenhouse gasses
- Wait many years
- Make sure there's water and stuff
- Wait a couple thousand of years before coral can grown
- Hope it's hot enough on the planet to stress out the coral so that it will envelope the whole planet in a shroud of clouds.

Right. Dimethyl Sulfide is a very common solvent that can be wielded by coral for much more direct benefits than creating clouds. And this aerosole forming properties of DMS are already known for quite a long time.

Rather, we can fly in trillions of eggs and somehow let them rot on the planet to get the DMS we want.

Clarification-

[PsiPsiStar]

To clarify my earlier post; Should the production of acid count against the Gaia hypothesis since it involves life producing conditions which aren't generally hospitable to life. Is there biased selection among proponents of Gaia theory to cite only processes that lend themselves to environmental homeostasis or are such things actually the norm?

Dangers of the Gaia hypothesis

[Lonesome Squash]

Of course, this is a nice illustration of the Gaia hypothesis at work. However, caution is called for, for several reasons. The Gaia hypothesis represents danger scientifically, socially, and ecologically.

Scientifically, the danger is that we will be seduced by the filedrawer effect. Creatures definitely affect their environments. In some instances their effect will tend to feed back negatively (as the G.H. would predict), and in some cases positively. Whenever we come across an attractive example like this one, we trumpet it (and rightfully so). But when we come across a counterexample, we might tend to file it away as uninteresting. Would there have been a /. article saying, "Coral reefs have no particular effect on their local weather!"?

The social danger is that people's faith in the Earth Mother's ability to protect herself and them from harm will cause them to discount the importance of human-induced climate change.

The ecological danger is that, if the G.H. is accurate, then there are negative feedback loops maintaining our climate, and masking the effects of human (or other) influences on the climate. But it would be foolish to imagine that these mechanisms have no breaking point, no limit beyond which they can no longer maintain their local environment. If the strong G.H. turns out to be accurate, irreparable harm may be done to our environment before we see the signs.

Re:Dangers of the Gaia hypothesis

[CheshireCatCO]

We should be especially worried at this news, since we're killing coral at an alarming rate. If the coral has mitigated warming in the past, there's less of it to help now.

DMSP source of DMS, microbial community produces

[oldbox]

This is part of a large body of research on DMS, its production, fate, and effect on climate. See pubmed for over a thousand citeations.

Allmost all the DMS produced in the oceans originally came from DMSP produced by algae (some corals have symbiotic algae). Some DMSP is broken down to DMS by the algae themselves, but bacteria seem to have a major role in breaking down DMSP to DMS, as well as to another compound, methanethiol, that is not released into the atmosphere in large amounts. Interestingly, the genome of a bacterium that carries out both pathways of DMSP degradation is sequenced. Hopefully this will soon allow us to find more about these two competing fates of DMSP. If you really want more information on this bacteria, you could read the discription paper.

bugbox

does coral stop the wind?

[museumpeace]

The prevailing winds must be pretty slack for an aerosol to have time to rise up to cloud levels and promote condensation before being wafted away from the reef those aerosols were intended to protect. If there are steady prevailing winds at the GBR, i would expect the benefit of this cloud formation to be down wind of the reef.