Slashdot Mirror
'Huge Wake Up Call': Third of Central, Northern Great Barrier Reef Corals Dead (smh.com.au)
iONiUM quotes a report from The Sydney Morning Herald: More than one-third of the coral reefs of the central and northern regions of the Great Barrier Reef have died in the huge bleaching event earlier this year, Queensland researchers said. Corals to the north of Cairns -- covering about two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef -- were found to have an average mortality rate of 35 percent, rising to more than half in areas around Cooktown. Bleaching occurs when abnormal conditions, such as warm seas, cause corals to expel tiny photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae. Corals turn white without these algae and may die if the zooxanthellae do not recolonize them. "It is fair to say we were all caught by surprise," Professor Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said. "It's a huge wake up call because we all thought that coral bleaching was something that happened in the Pacific or the Caribbean which are closer to the epicenter of El Nino events." The report says, "The northern end of the Great Barrier Reef was home to many 50- to 100-year-old corals that had died and may struggle to rebuild before future El Ninos push tolerance beyond thresholds."
Coral is already dead. Rock is dead.
until there is more plastic in the ocean than FISH
I wish mindless micro dick bigots like you would all die off,
Some corals tolerate heat much better than others. We should identify the genes that make that possible, and clone them into other coral species. Some research is being done.
We're debating bathroom peen inspectors in red states as a top priority.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
UNESCO had drawn up a list of world heritage sites that were in danger from climate change, and Australia had the reefs removed because it would hurt tourism.
Between this and WHO saying there's no real risk to spreading zika so please go the the Olympics, it's obvious that it's all about the money.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
So:
- why is it happening? ...
- why are the individuals/groups pulling the strings and the press allowing this to happen without yelling and screaming?
(are the "protesters" considered lunatics?)
Maybe dreamland: nothing happens to us, we can afford it... elysium-style
Or - afraid of taking risks to go outside the "normal", loosing the comfort zone
- does not concern me
- too busy making ends meet
It's really bad - one just can wonder what's causing it in human brains to let this happen.
I recently met a guy: global warming does not exist and a huge waterfall of words arguing for why this is the case, impossible to even touch the subject - extremely determined.
I just classify it as religious believe system - no real proof, continuous repetition burns the PROM and it runs forever, if you touch it, it may explode.
Paul Allen throws a heckuva party!
Idiot. They're rising, it's obvious in places like Tuvalu. But the rise is slow - it'll never reach 10 feet any time soon, it's only risen one foot in the last century. But it's got a lot warmer, and that's the real problem. You did read the article, didn't you? Oh no: of course you didn't, you just leapt to make an ignorant comment based on your own stupid belief system. Business as usual, in other words. You should run for office.
http://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/great-barrier-reef-death-in-five-years-is-laughable/news-story/7f0de36647f172815f55ebfd3a2e9df1
So who's on point?
The Climate Change deniers will continue to deny it. You can't change their minds – they know what they know, and no amount of science will change their minds. Logic? That's a shibboleth to the deniers. If you use logic on them they just dig in their heels.
Everyone else is already awake.
(This is not climate change denial, please read the whole post)
We (as in the population of this planet) need to stop freaking out just because something changed. Earth has never been a static environment and will never be a static environment ... save for the very unlikely chance that it survives the suns transition to a white dwarf. Assuming that it is or, worse, trying to force it to be so is a waste of resources. A perfect example of this is the severity of forest fires, especially in North America. Many people point to this as an example of the dangers of global warming. That may be one cause but the primary cause is humanity actively preventing regular, smaller forest fires that were a natural part of the environment until we gained the ability to stop them (accepted as scientific fact, google it).
The problem is they don't know what caused the bleaching. The assumption is that it is warmer weather but the overall contribution of weather might play a major part, a minor part or no part at all (it could be caused by unknown dumping, a new parasite, etc.) Automatically chunking everything into the "global warming" bin leads us to be lazy (scientifically) and ignore other possibilities that should be explored until a scientifically founded conclusion is reached (or the closest approximation that's possible). And I understand that this is exactly what many scientist are doing, the problem is the media, pundits and celebrities who think they have an understanding of the situation but really don't and try to fit all problems to the one solution they know. It severely damages the chances of examining problems critically and coming to a complete understanding of what's going on and the best solution for addressing it. Scientist need to stop pandering to this and click-bait sound bites (but then they lose out on funding and have no chance to complete their research... which is another rant entirely).
/soapbox
We have heard this all before. Warm water associated with El Nino causes coral bleaching, ( and cold water from El Nina events also causes coral beaching. The world is coming to an end unless we change our sinful ways is proclaimed across all lands.
Meanwhile the corals adjust their symbiotic alga, recover and go back to what they have been doing for the last 250 million years.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVvu17UxX4LkA68IPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=1997-1998+El+Nino+Coral+Bleaching+Great+Barrier+Reef&fr=yhs-iry-fullyhosted_003&hspart=iry&hsimp=yhs-fullyhosted_003
So much for the wake-up call.
But the satellite measurements say sea level is rising. Aren't satellites the gold standard? They appear to be when it comes to temperatures.
Agreed! The water didn't rise 1foot in Mongolia, therefore the sea level never changed.
... save for the very unlikely chance that it survives the suns transition to a white dwarf.
Long before that happens, the sun will transform itself to a red giant and balloon out to about Saturn's orbit. Even though most of the volume of a red giant is simply a red-hot vacuum, it's unlikely that the Earth will survive until the sun collapses into a white dwarf.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
We know exactly what is causing it. Rising average temperatures mixed with a short term heat wave.
Average temperatures = climate change.
Short term heat wave = El Niño.
This particular El Niño wasn't so bad, or very long lasting, but the increase in the baseline tipped its effects into the catastrophic bucket.
Ps. Congratulations on getting me to read your whole comment. Next time I won't pay attention to your clearly fallacious assertion that it wasn't going to be an anti science rant.
(Your anti science rant was the typical: we don't know anything!! The science we are looking at that perfectly explains everything might be some other unverified unexplained unexplored unfounded theory that I just listed off the cuff because I don't know fucking shit about climate, or science and clearly I'm so smart that no one else ever once thought of any of this!! )
Sounds like a fine place to build port for coal exports.
Hmmm. They're declining on the East Coast. So. Now what?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/29/the-sea-levels-are-now-reducing-in-the-hotspots-of-acceleration-of-washington-and-new-york/
Your use of punctuation is baffling.
Tuvalu, really? Plotting the data and running a linear fit results in a 0.3mm change per year, at best. That's about 1.2 inches per century/ I guess that's an obvious rise?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You're obviously very easily baffled.
No, you're illiterate.
Idiot. They're rising, it's obvious in places like Tuvalu. But the rise is slow - it'll never reach 10 feet any time soon, it's only risen one foot in the last century. But it's got a lot warmer, and that's the real problem. You did read the article, didn't you? Oh no: of course you didn't, you just leapt to make an ignorant comment based on your own stupid belief system. Business as usual, in other words. You should run for office.
Let us analyze your baffling post sentence by sentence.
Fragment. Run on. Starts with a coordinating conjunction - should be an em dash, run on. Conjunction again, its not it's. Splice. WTF: fragment spliced onto a run on. Spliced fragments. The one correct sentence in your post.
For all you dick-head climate deniers, you missed out.
I went up to Cairns a few years ago and snorkelled out on the reef, it was awesome.
I have known for a long time it was going to happen.
All the fuckwit redneck farmers up there allowing farm run-off onto the reef - crown of thorns.
Chopping down the bush faster than anywhere else, silting up the reef.
All the happy little coal burners - climate change.
Australia is full of fucking stupid sheep.
Go well
nonsense. if the water rose one foot in tuvalu it should have risen the same one foot across the entire planet which it clearly has not.
Right, just like the tides raise by the exact same amount (2 feet) all over the world. Oh, wait, they raise by up to 50 feet in the bay of Fundy and by close to zero feet in other locations... Maybe you just have no idea what you're talking about.
Seriously, it amazes me that china will be allowed to continue growing their emission.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In the 1980s, protecting the environment was a major concern, along with pollution. Then John Howard got elected and things that couldn't be owned, like the environment were ignored. It's been that way ever since.
i can already see it
cooooooorallllllll
Oh yes. He's whistling dick ... see?
Let's ignore the fact that the earth has been significantly hotter, by several degree; had significantly higher CO2 levels, by several times. And TOTALLY IGNORE...the fact that we are leaching tons and tons of pesticides and herbicides into the water. Which have already been shown to cause harm to many micro-organisms and arthropods.
Pesticides and Herbicides are the likely true reason our reefs are dying. These reefs have endure far greater temperature and CO2 variances over the millions of years.
http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work...
As for the global effect, it's probably happened hundreds of times over the span of Coral populations
"The geological record indicates that ancestors of modern coral reef ecosystems were formed at least 240 million years ago. The coral reefs existing today began growing as early as 50 million years ago. Most established coral reefs are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old."
But we'd rather blame CO2 and Global Warming for every environmental problem, even though most true science disproves it as the cause of the environmental damage and points far more to chemical poisoning from agricultural production.
They're rising, it's obvious in places like Tuvalu. But the rise is slow - it'll never reach 10 feet any time soon, it's only risen one foot in the last century. But it's got a lot warmer, and that's the real problem.
Let us analyze your baffling post sentence by sentence.
Fragment. Run on. Starts with a coordinating conjunction - should be an em dash, run on. Conjunction again, its not it's. Splice. WTF: fragment spliced onto a run on. Spliced fragments. The one correct sentence in your post.
I think the original poster is correct and you are wrong. "It's" is spelled correctly all three times it's used.
From 2014:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-22/global-warming-blamed-for-pacific-coral-bleaching/5983718
The Marshall Islands is experiencing its worst-ever coral bleaching as global warming threatens reefs across the entire northern Pacific, scientists say.
http://www.planetexperts.com/severe-coral-bleaching-reported-throughout-pacific-ocean/
According to Dr. Mark Eakin, the coordinator for Coral Reef Watch, “[W]hat’s happening is, as global temperatures increase and especially as the ocean warms through the increase of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases in the atmosphere, it’s warming the ocean so that it doesn’t take as big an El Niño to have the same effect on water temperatures.”
From 2012:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2012/10/02/why_the_great_barrier_reef_could_lose_almost_all_its_coral_in_the_next_decade.html
Researchers from AIMS, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, say the Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its coral in little more than a generation. And the pace of damage has picked up since 2006....Globally, reefs are being assailed by myriad threats, particularly rising sea temperatures, increased ocean acidity and more powerful storms, but the threat to the Great Barrier Reef is even more pronounced, the AIMS study published on Tuesday found. “In terms of geographic scale and the extent of the decline, it is unprecedented anywhere in the world,” AIMS chief John Gunn told Reuters....Between 1985 and 2012, coral cover of the reef area fell from 28 per cent to 13.8 per cent. “Coral cover on the reef is consistently declining, and without intervention, it will likely fall to 5 to 10 per cent within the next 10 years,” the researchers write in the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They called for tougher curbs on greenhouse gas emissions as a crucial way to stem the loss.
Granted, their model was off by three times, but they knew it that the reef was dieing at a significant rate. And this is from someone that only casually follows news about that reef.
It's all from those China boats spewing their exhaust into the ocean as they ship their crap around the world.
The oil tankers too. Where does their exhaust go? Right into the ocean.
Just saying...
Joking aside, let's face the facts, the majority of the population of the WORLD, not just the USA (although we definitely have far more than our fair share of complete morons), are idiots. We (as a species) are very good at responding to disasters, and terrible at planning to prevent them. Part of the issue is probably deeply-rooted in our subconscious "reptilian" brain. Could we overcome it? Sure. Sometimes we do. But usually we don't. Usually we wait for the disaster to happen, or make pretend "attempts" to prevent disaster by taking half-assed measures (often because "there isn't enough money". Money really is the root of all evil. It's easy to prove. Take any major issue and why it doesn't get dealt with properly when a) we know what needs to be done, b) have the ability to do so, c) have the people willing (and often needing) to do the work, and d) have the willpower to actually do the work but e) can't do it because "there isn't enough money." Our current societies are a fucking joke; a grand almost-universally-accepted delusion. But I digress...)
These issues will be taken care of sometime when the Soylent Green scenario, as silly as it seems, it literal reality. When the oceans are dying and when we are forced to eat recycled dead humans (assuming we still have enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support our existence after the oceans die). Even then it won't really be addressed until it directly threatens the families of the 1 percenters and the politicians in power at the time.
The force of gravity is not equal across the planet, which is also spinning and subject to ocean currents which means that sea level rises are not the same on all points of the globe.
Professor Hughes continued "We expected this in the near future as everything continues to snowball but not earlier this year, this is months ahead of schedule!