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Images Show Further Damage To Great Barrier Reef, But Scientists Assure It's Not Dead (huffingtonpost.com)
New images of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest living thing on Earth, are alarming and show the extent of the damage climate change has caused to the coral. But it's not dead yet, scientists have assured, reports the HuffingtonPost citing several scientists. In April, researchers found that more than a third of corals in central and northern parts of the reef had been killed and 93 percent of individuals reefs had been affected by a condition known as coral bleaching (which happens when the water is too warm). New research shows the damage has worsened. A story, however, doing rounds on social media claims that the Great Barrier Reef has died. The viral story has been picked up by many well-read outlets, creating confusion among people. From a HuffingtonPost article: But as a whole, it is not dead. Preliminary findings published Thursday of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority surveys show 22 percent of its coral died from the bleaching event. That leaves more than three quarters still alive -- and in desperate need of relief. Two leading coral scientists that The Huffington Post contacted took serious issue with Outside's piece (the misleading viral story), calling it wildly irresponsible. Russell Brainard, chief of the Coral Reef Ecosystem Program at NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, told HuffPost he expects the article was meant to highlight the urgency of the situation. But those who don't know any better "are going to take it at face value that the Great Barrier Reef is dead," he said. The Spokesman-Review, in Spokane, Washington, fueled the myth Thursday, when it published a blog with the headline: "Great Barrier Reef pronounced dead by scientists." Brainard told HuffPost the recent bleaching event was a "severe blow" that resulted in serious mortality. Still, "we're very far from an obituary," he said.
The Great Barrier Reef has been monitored by AIMS since 1980. The first mass bleaching event occurred in (then) record warm year 1998 when 50 per cent of the reefs suffered bleaching. The next in 2002 where 60 per cent of reefs were affected. In both events, about five per cent of the Great Barrier Reef's coral reefs were severely damaged. (compared to 22% now)
The impact from this most recent bleaching event, the most widespread and severe ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef, is still unfolding.
The Humongous Fungus is the largest organism on Earth
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."
Taking the HG wells time machine back a few decades when we could have probably saved it? Even if all greenhouse gasses were stopped completely right this second its going to take a very long time for the earth to trap that carbon again and start returning to normal temperatures. So call it now or call it later but I really can't see what can be done about it at this point.
Maybe if we act on carbon caps we can save some of what is still alive in the ocean.
...But the great barrier reef isn't a geological feature. Reefs aren't formed by geological processes.
You could likewise say that as a astronomical feature, the GBR is relatively new only being 20,000 years old while it's closest star is formed 4.6 billion years ago.
It's ecological. The coral is living stuff. The fish and plants which make up the ecosystem are all alive. They are not rocks waiting for the tectonic plates to move them around. It's like a forest or a rain jungle. They certainly operate on larger timescales than people are used to thinking about, but they are not geological or astronomical.
Reefs are most certainly tied to geological features. They need shallow water at the right temperature. And change that and they'll die off. Just as much as if you somehow stop all the rain, the forests in California will all burn down.
On an evolutionary timescale, the GBR has been around a long time and it's fostered some amazing specialists which have unique and possibly useful genetic traits. As we're right on the cusp of understanding the genetic code and reaping that useful insight and millennia of real-world testing and application, it'd be a shame to lose it.
Of course it's not permanent and eternal. Nothing is. The sun will burn out and blow up eventually.
1. The mineral structure, the big rocky stuff that sinks pirate ships that run afoul the reef, IS...NOT...ALIVE... Never has been, never will be. It is merely the mineral deposits that corals deposit on things to use as a base on which to grow. So when they go on an on about it being thousands of years old and being the largest organism on the planet, they are either woefully ignorant or blatantly lying. It's like saying the human race is the biggest organism on the planet because we build cities and have people everywhere. Scratch off the top inch of a reef and you have hit the dead stuff.
2. Corals do not take thousands of years to grow. They take days, weeks, and sometimes months to grow. Many spawn free swimming and drifting larva every lunar cycle or so (full moon).
3. That's right boys and like the 2 girls here, corals are not plants, they are animals that cultivate algae inside themselves to use as a food source. That is the dreaded "bleaching" they are always worried about. Bleaching does not always equal death to a coral, nor is it always cause by a change in temperature. Disease, stress, salinity, water chemistry, water clarity, sand settling, and people (touching, nets, poisons, boats etc.) all cause that. Sometimes the corals dump the algae in order to get a more productive local algae to grow. Corals also catch and eat various things, hence why the bleaching is not a death sentence.
4. Coral reefs are not static. They move over time. When they spawn they dump millions of larvae into the currents which spread everywhere. If they find a spot that is favorable they will start a new reef. Storms break up the reefs and the chunks can go on to form new reefs or end up in dead spots on the old reef and patch the holes. So when they go on about parts of a reef dying, yep it probably is. Is that normal? Depends on why. A reef being smothered by runoff silt, probably not. Water temps changing, yep happens all the time. Currents and regional temps have never been static, they move and change with time. The reef will die off during the change. Temperature tolerant organism will take over, and when the temperature shifts back they too will move on or die and the corals will take over again....growing right back on top of the "dead" reef" like nothing ever happened..
5. Coral reefs can be replaced at an time in locations they find favorable by the average person. They'd like you to think that only dedicated government certified highly trained scientists are the ones capable of dealing with the problem. Not even remotely true. There is an entire cottage industry in the aquarium trade of people who grow corals in their homes. Those same techniques are used often to repopulate areas that have been damaged much in the same way you would replant trees after a hurricane. I personally have been kicking the idea around for years of building my own patch reef offshore for fun and profit down here in Florida away from the well known dive spots loved to death by tourists.
I love the ocean and spend is much time in it as I can, but I grow weary of the shrill land lubbers claiming to know what is best, if only we would just put them in charge. Fuck that. If the government was in charge of the ocean there would be a shortage of sand within 10 years.