Great Barrier Reef Has Worst Coral Die-Off Ever, Report Finds (usatoday.com)

Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered from its worst coral die-off ever recorded, according to a new study from the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies based at James Cook University. "Stress from the unusually warm ocean water heated by man-made climate change and the natural El Nino climate pattern caused the die-off," reports USA Today. At more than 1,400 miles long, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef and the planet's biggest structure made by living organisms. In the northernmost section of the reef, which had been considered the most "pristine," some 67% of the coral died. The good news, scientists said, was that central and southern sections of the reef fared far better, with "only" 6% and 1% of the coral dead, respectively. Coral reefs result from the work of little polyps, creatures only a few millimeters long, budded on top of one another. Over centuries, the shells of these creatures combine to form the exotic shapes of coral reefs. Tiny differences in the anatomy of each polyp species affect the shape of their shells and produce the exotic shapes of each reef. The vibrant colors that draw thousands of tourists to the Great Barrier Reef each year come from algae that live in the corals tissue. When water temperatures become too high, coral becomes stressed and expels the algae, which leave the coral a bleached white color. Mass coral bleaching is a new phenomenon and was never observed before the 1980s as global warming ramped up. Besides their beauty, reefs shelter land from storms, and are also a habitat for myriads of species.

Comments

unlikely

[rsilvergun]

diving is a really, really expensive thing to go do. That's sorta the problem. The rust belters in America who just voted for Trump (or who didn't vote Hilary because they couldn't bring themselves to) really don't care about coral reefs. They care about next month's rent. Until you can fix their economy you're not going to get anyone to care. The environment doesn't really matter to somebody taking out their second payday loan...

Re:unlikely

[MightyMartian]

Their kids will care, and will ask those Rust Belters "Why did you allow some fucking moron to screw things up, just because you didn't want to switch careers?"

Re:unlikely

[JoeMerchant]

It's not just rust belters, a common saying among red party boaters in Florida is that we should find a really great specimen of a Manatee, shoot it, stuff it, put it in a museum, and then get rid of all the god damned speed limits for boats in coastal manatee habitat, because f- these giant cow things that have been here for millions of years, I've got twin 250s on my new open fisherman and I damn well want to open the throttle straight out of the marina instead of putzing out to open water before I can throw a wake.

Yeah, boomers don't give a shit what the place will look like when they're gone.

Re:unlikely

[Ogive17]

I'm in the rust belt. The people who voted for Trump fall into 1 of 2 categories. 1 - educated but grew up Republican and have always voted for someone with an R next to their name. 2 - uneducated and unwilling to learn a new trade. Don't understand how much welfare they already receive but think it's unfair others also benefit from the government.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in the twilight zone living in my rural town of 25k people. Per capita, we require far more government assistance due to the amount of roads/utilities/police and fire coverage because we're so damn spread out.. most people don't realize how many millions of dollars in state and federal grants (i.e. aid) we receive each year to keep our town looking nice.

The one thing I'm proud of is that my town has always supported school tax levies as well as tax levies for the public library and the disability support program in the county.

Shameless Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that "more realistic" than the links quoted above? It's more realistic than the Outdide Magazine orbitiary it debunks, but it agrees with the articles above when it notes that this "is the most severe coral bleaching on record."

Re:Interesting take, but ...

[acrimonious howard]

The fish will pay!
Because climate change is a hoax...
By the chinese.
Uh, but seriously, he says whatever it takes to distract. He actually says one thing and then appoints a a team of climate change deniers to the most key positions of his cabinet.
And all of this might just be intended to distract the public from his conflicts of interest.

Re:Calling bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll trust the scientists in the article before trusting a random loser on slashdot like you.

Re: bah humbug global warming

[JoeMerchant]

Dead coral, skeletons, are white.

Bleaching is a simplification, and basically means the presence of large swaths of long-dead corals, usually corals that died together in a short period of time.

It's like the forests of trees hundreds of years old that have been clearcut - all we have to do is leave them alone for a few thousand years and they will repopulate to something approximately like what they were before we started messing with them.

Very worrying

[jandersen]

Besides their beauty, reefs shelter land from storms, and are also a habitat for myriads of species.

Coral reefs are not just beautiful, though; they constitute only perhaps a few % of the oceans' environment, but they support something like 25% or more of all life in the sea, so we really do need to protect them.

Re:It's dead Jim

[Maritz]

You don't have to be liberal to accept the science of climate change. You just don't have to be a pathetic intellectual coward who won't face reality.