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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.
Some alternate sources:
Australia: http://www.news.com.au/technol...
BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
- Donald Trump
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385
Thank you Mr Coward. But while water quality does impact the health of the GBR in a few specific areas, it does not cause bleaching.
This is what AIMS has to say about recent bleaching events:
In 2016, record oceans temperatures have led to record widespread coral bleaching on Australian coral reefs. This bleaching is part of the ongoing third global bleaching event, declared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2015.
Between February and May, the Great Barrier Reef experienced record warm sea surface temperatures. Extensive field surveys and aerial surveys found bleaching was the most widespread and severe in the Far Northern management area, between Cape York and Port Douglas. Here, bleaching intensity was ‘Severe’ (more than 60% community bleaching). Bleaching intensity decreased along a southerly gradient. While most reefs exhibited some degree of bleaching, this bleaching varied in intensity (from less than 10% to over 90% community bleaching) and was patchy throughout most of the management area.
The impact from this bleaching event, the most widespread and severe ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef, is still unfolding. Based on in-water monitoring surveys, overall coral mortality is (as of June 2016) at 22% for the entire Great Barrier Reef. Coral mortality is highest in the northern section. Post-bleaching reef monitoring surveys towards the end of the year will provide further clarity on the full extent of coral mortality.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
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...
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To be accurate, coral bleaching is caused by environmental stress, as it said in my first link - and polluted water or heavy sedimentation are possible sources of stress. Even excessive freshwater can cause bleaching (which contributed in 2008 and 2011).
However, those are not the cause of this event, as my second link made quite clear.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
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.
The current team don't have anyone for environment I think. Nearest swamp thing is probably "Michal Catazaro, energy lobbyist whose clients include American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Hess, Devon Energy, and Encana Oil and Gas" in charge of "Energy Independence".
On his opinion, the nearest I can find is this:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Climate-Gate.html
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
Benefiticial effects????? Really? Well it is making the coral WHITER, and I guess that is what Trump wants.
(List of Trump transition leaders):
Defense & National Security, led by Maj. Gen. Bert Mizusawa.
Immigration Reform & Building The Wall, led by Danielle Cutrona, counsel to Sen. Jeff Sessions.[46]
Energy Independence, led by Michael Catanzaro, an energy lobbyist whose clients include American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Hess, Devon Energy, and Encana Oil and Gas.[46][47]
Tax Reform, led by Jim Carter, a lobbyist employed by Emerson.[46]
Regulatory Reform, led by Rob Gordon, who serves as staff director/senior policy adviser for the House Natural Resources Committee, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.[46]
Trade Reform, led by Rolf Lundberg, a lobbyist and former employee of the Chamber of Commerce.[46]
Education, led by Gerard Robinson of the American Enterprise Institute.[46]
Transportation & Infrastructure, led by Martin Whitmer, a lobbyist at Whitmer & Worrall whose client include the American Association of Railroads, National Asphalt Pavement Association and the Utilities Technology Council.[46]
Financial Services Reform, led by Brian Johnson, Chief Financial Institutions Counsel for the House Financial Services Committee
Healthcare Reform, led by Paula Stannard, former deputy general counsel and acting general counsel of HHS and currently a lawyer at Alston & Bird.[46]
Veterans Administration Reform, led by Bill Chatfield
Protecting Americans' Constitutional Rights, led by Ken Klukowski, senior counsel and director of strategic affairs for the First Liberty Institute.[46]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
"Ice Age Fallacy, is to allege that scientists showed concerns about global cooling which did not materialise, therefore there is no need to heed current scientific concerns about climate change.[58] In a 1998 article promoting the Oregon Petition, Fred Singer argued that expert concerns about global warming should be dismissed on the basis that what he called "the same hysterical fears" had supposedly been expressed earlier about global cooling.[59]"
"Illustrating this argument, for several years an image has been circulated of a Time magazine cover, supposedly dated 1977, showing a penguin above a cover story title "How to Survive the Coming Ice Age". In March 2013, The Mail on Sunday published an article by David Rose, showing this same cover image, to support his claim that there was as much concern in the 1970s about a "looming 'ice age'" as there was now about global warming.[60][61] After researching the authenticity of the magazine cover image, in July 2013, Bryan Walsh, a senior editor at Time, confirmed that the image was a hoax, modified from a 2007 cover story image for "The Global Warming Survival Guide".[58]"
i.e. you've been led to believe there was a scientific consensus on global cooling due to falling temperatures in the 50s,60s and 70s, and you were likely shown fake Time magazine covers to illustrate this, and thus you are supposed to ignore the scientific consensus on global warming.
But the temperatures didn't fall in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, so even a cursive check on the facts shows you how you've been misled.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
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.
Disclaimer: I'm a physicist at James Cook University, where this study was published. My mother used to work at AIMS 20 years ago, my sister works for CSIRO in marine research, and my cousin-in-law is currently the Coral Reef ARC's COO.
These are results published by the Australian Research Council Centre for Coral Reef Studies. Prof. Terry Hughes, who runs this centre at JCU, has basically surrounding himself with like-minded people. The self-citation rate for articles published by the centre is remarkably high, and I quite frankly don't trust Prof. Hughes to do unbiased research, or to critically analyse his own work. There is a pretty strong monoculture of reef research, and I believe it's a pretty serious problem. One of my physics lecturers wrote a rebuttal letter to Prof Hughes that was leaked to the press, and was disciplined for it (one more strike and he's fired). I would really like to see a little more diversity in the people that study this topic.
That said, I have no reason to doubt the truth of this study. The die-off is real, and is unprecedented in modern times, and elementary physics tells us that increased temperatures due to climate change can only make it worse, not better. My mum's old boss from AIMS, Charlie Veron said in a seminar 10 years ago that the reef is probably doomed, and that even if we manage to stop all CO2 today, there's enough inertia that very little of the reef will survive.
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.
You're partly right - the answer really varies as different reefs are affected in different ways, but fundamentally global warming can exacerbate effects such as El Nino/La Nina, so that your 3c increase may become 5c for a time. The issue is that these ecosystems are fragile and it only takes small changes to do immense damage. It's not that nature can't adapt to temperature fluctuations and such, it's that it can't adapt at the rate of change we're forcing on it. In terms of global warming in general consider the Polar Bear, normally climate would change over thousands of years and Polar Bears would become more brown, have less insular fur and move south and become more like grizzlies, but we're forcing change to their environment in decades, that's just not long enough for enough generations to be selected for brown fur - you just aren't going to go from white fur to brown fur (and possibly lose some insulating features) and adapt in that kind of compressed time frame, which is why they're at risk.
For what it's worth there are reefs that don't seem particularly affected at all by the temperature change, the Great Barrier Reef seems to be one of the most especially fragile ones, and coupled with it's immense size this makes it stand out. See my other post elsewhere on this topic where I point out that the Red Sea reefs are currently at their most vibrant they've been in a long, long time regardless of temperature change, simply because of the reduction in tourism to Egypt. In contrast, much of the Great Barrier Reef is already protected from humans, yet is still suffering. This should really highlight how different reefs are affected in different ways, that they can recover, but recovery needs different things in different reefs - lack of human presence is doing wonders in Egypt's Red Sea, but it's doing nothing for the Great Barrier Reef, my suspicion being that the Great Barrier Reef suffers far more greatly from the changes in a body as large as the Pacific than the far better protected Red Sea does where humans are by far the largest problem.
Climate change isn't an inherent problem in itself, man-made or natural, you're right, it happens. The problem is the rate of climate change that's occuring right now, that's the real issue here, nature just doesn't have sufficient time to adapt right now which is why we're seeing events like this and why this period is often being called a mass extinction event period.
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.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.