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'Huge Wake Up Call': Third of Central, Northern Great Barrier Reef Corals Dead (smh.com.au)

Posted by BeauHD on from the please-leave-a-message-after-the-tone dept.

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."

17 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Re: News FLASH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not sure if joke or you're ignorant of the fact that corals are actually animals and not rocks.

  2. GM coral by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:GM coral by sl149q · · Score: 4, Informative

      For a slightly more balanced view on this see here: https://judithcurry.com/2016/0...

      One of the reasons that coral can adapt quickly is that their symbionts adapt quickly.

      From the above reference "Although coral genomes may evolve slowly, their symbionts have extremely fast generation times, averaging every 7 days. Furthermore the symbiont community consists of hundreds of symbionts that have already adapted to a wide variety of temperature, irradiance and salinity variables within different microclimates over the past million years. Symbiont shuffling and shifting is an evolutionary masterpiece that circumvents plodding evolutionary mechanisms of most organisms with long generation times and enables immediate adaptation.

      A good summary statement is provided by Baker et al. “flexibility in coral–algal symbiosis is likely to be a principal factor underlying the evolutionary success of these organisms”.
      "

    2. Re:GM coral by Namarrgon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apparently these symbionts didn't adapt quickly enough; much of the coral is dead.

      However, it's not unheard of for reefs to recover faster than expected, if the water quality is good enough, so there's still some hope that any remaining symbionts will be more resilient in future. Unless they get hammered again too quickly...

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    3. Re:GM coral by zmooc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There's much more going on than "some research". Australia is actively breeding coral that is adapted to future conditions (lower pH, more CO2, higher temperatures) and is planning on releasing the results in the wild. I got this from the documentary about the Great Barrier Reef on Discovery Channel, but this article also describes it:

      http://www.nature.com/news/cli...

      --
      0x or or snor perron?!
    4. Re:GM coral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nothing Judith Curry says is balanced.
      She's a professional apologist and skeptic for deniers, who keeps her head firmly in the sand and tries to explain how warming temperatures aren't actually warming temperatures. She barely escapes being an outright denier herself, by taking the "we need to know more" stance instead of "its not happening" stance.

  3. Meanwhile in America by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Meanwhile in America by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, we are debating whether letting sex predators and perverts into the ladies room is a good idea or not.

      I have grave news for ya Bucky - Sexual predators and perverts have been going into your ladies rooms for a long long long long time before you got to throw a little more hatred of gays and people who aren't the right type of people as you would have it. Google fu shows that as a fact.

      And you could burn every transgernder person at the stake and the sexual predators and perverts will still go in to rest rooms. Why? Not many transgenders are that.

      Don't for a minute pretend that this isn't just more of the projection based hatred of people who think that restrooms equal sex, and that someone that changes gender is somehow a prevert. Some guy that had his weenie cut off is not much danger to our wimminfolk, considering s/he probably didn't cut it off in order to become a lesbian.

      A heterosexual male with bad impulse control and a penchant for sexually assaulting women on the other hand is, and a person like that isn't going to think "I was going to follow that woman into the restroom and rape her, but there's a lat against me going in there, so I better not." And these laws? They don't do a thing about that.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. Australia had the UNESCO report censored. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Australia had the UNESCO report censored. by Layzej · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      To top it off, Australia has just gutted the research arm that studies this.

      See no evil. Hear no evil.

    2. Re:Australia had the UNESCO report censored. by aXis100 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's just appalling.

      To further highlight the farce, 3 months ago the Australian environment minister Greg Hunt was awarded "Best Minister in the World".

      Meanwhile under his watch we've:
      - Abolished the Carbon Tax
      - Increased our Carbon emmissions
      - Approved the biggest coal mine in the country
      - Approved additional dredging to allow for increased coal exports
      - Passed legislation to prevent environmentalists from legally challenging his rulings.
      - Did nothing whilst big chunks of the Great Barrier Reef died.
      - Called out the opposition leader on not offering support for communities that depend of reef tourism. I mean, WTF??

    3. Re:Australia had the UNESCO report censored. by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Funny

      But everyone know Jesus loves oil and would never make CO2 harmful, and anyone who says otherwise is an evil Communist out to destroy capitalism.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Australia had the UNESCO report censored. by Namarrgon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A carbon price is a proxy for the missing external costs of coal power, so it helps raise the wholesale price to better reflect its true cost (which is around double current wholesale prices). This alone encourages alternatives - both demand for carbon-neutral alternative power, and investment in further renewable generation.

      But of course, the revenue from that didn't vanish; it was funneled back into industry adaption schemes and consumer tax cuts. And it worked, driving emissions down significantly, until it was repealed in 2014 (at which point they immediately started rising again.

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    5. Re:Australia had the UNESCO report censored. by Clifton+Beach · · Score: 3, Informative

      And then instead of being ashamed about getting references to the reef removed from the UN's report on climate change, Australia's (Anti) Environment minister then gloated about it on Twitter:

      "Under Labor the U.N. put the Great Barrier Reef on the In-Danger 'Watch list'...Thanks to the coalition it came off"

      I wish this was satire but unfortunately it's not.

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      42 hidden comments
    6. Re:Australia had the UNESCO report censored. by aXis100 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hmm, is that why the Australia government quietly released a report on Christmas eve 2015 showing a 1% increase. I'm sure they were hoping no-one was watching.

      http://www.theguardian.com/aus...

  5. Re: News FLASH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hmmm. Too close to call. I suggest an international spelling bee to decide.

  6. Re:That's a known issue by Livius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Rushing off and blaming every adverse environmental outcome on climate change is in itself a religious belief system.

    Which is why no-one listens to people like that.

    But we do listen to actual scientists.