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

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...

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.

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.

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