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AI Identifies Heat-Resistant Coral Reefs In Indonesia (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Between 2014 and 2017, the world's reefs endured the worst coral bleaching event in history, as the cyclical El Nino climate event combined with anthropogenic warming to cause unprecedented increases in water temperature. But the June survey, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's family foundation, found the Sulawesi reefs were surprisingly healthy. In fact they were in better condition than when they were originally surveyed in 2014 -- a surprise for British scientist Dr Emma Kennedy, who led the research team.
A combination of 360-degree imaging tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) allowed scientists to gather and analyze more than 56,000 images of shallow water reefs. Over the course of a six-week voyage, the team deployed underwater scooters fitted with 360 degree cameras that allowed them to photograph up to 1.5 miles of reef per dive, covering a total of 1487 square miles in total. Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia then used cutting edge AI software to handle the normally laborious process of identifying and cataloguing the reef imagery. Using the latest Deep Learning tech, they 'taught' the AI how to detect patterns in the complex contours and textures of the reef imagery and thus recognize different types of coral and other reef invertebrates. Once the AI had shown between 400 and 600 images, it was able to process images autonomously. The Ocean Agency has published a short 2-minute video on YouTube about the Coral Triangle survey.
A combination of 360-degree imaging tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) allowed scientists to gather and analyze more than 56,000 images of shallow water reefs. Over the course of a six-week voyage, the team deployed underwater scooters fitted with 360 degree cameras that allowed them to photograph up to 1.5 miles of reef per dive, covering a total of 1487 square miles in total. Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia then used cutting edge AI software to handle the normally laborious process of identifying and cataloguing the reef imagery. Using the latest Deep Learning tech, they 'taught' the AI how to detect patterns in the complex contours and textures of the reef imagery and thus recognize different types of coral and other reef invertebrates. Once the AI had shown between 400 and 600 images, it was able to process images autonomously. The Ocean Agency has published a short 2-minute video on YouTube about the Coral Triangle survey.
Just don't confuse coral "bleaching" with dying. It's normal for coral to "bleach" (expel their algae) every few years, and there can be dozens of different causes.
Around 40% of the time, after the bleaching event a different composition of algae takes the place of the expelled algae, about 50% of the time the same type of algae re-colonizes the polyps, and about 10% of it dies.
Australia has a pretty big reef and what have the australian gov done with 444million dollars ?
awarded the largest ever non-profit grant to an organisation with six staff members "without due diligence, without a proper tender process, without them even requesting it"
Great Barrier Reef Foundation then took big minning exec's a on snorkelling tour
contact Mr Frydenberg here :
https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=FKL
It probably is, or at least a sizable portion of it is. There's some temperature difference that will result in the death of 50% of all coral, just like there's a dosage for any substance that will be lethal for 50% of people. It might not be two degrees, but it's some amount.
That really isn't the point though, as once you've killed off that bottom 50%, the surviving population that will pass on its genes are the 50% that are more tolerant of heat. Assuming the change doesn't happen to rapidly as to cause an extinction, the parts of the population with the genes most fit for the new environment will be more reproductively successful and you eventually end up with a population that is more suited to its environment.
Life as a whole is pretty damned resilient. After Chernobyl, there were some people who thought it would be a lifeless radioactive hellscape for some time, but it didn't take long for some plants to develop a tolerance for the radiation and thrive in an area that would be deadly for everything else that didn't adapt to it. I don't think we should use this is an excuse to allow ourselves to damage the environment, but rather that we should reject arguments calling for radical action because otherwise life will perish.
It is nice that Paul Allen is actually funding things that really help society. Finding coral that can deal with the heat is really important to a lot of ocean life.
Probably different species involved than the species that can't survive the heat. Yeah, fantastic that there is a survivor; but there is still going to be a mass extinction of coral species unfortunately.
You are absolutely right. We are heading towards an extinction event. The only thing left to do (sans finding a way to revert global heat-up) is to repopulate devastated areas with more heat-resistance species.
I think that will be a necessity (since live reefs are an ecological necessity), but this implies we are going to start treating reefs the way we treat agriculture - using more resistant crops to phase out those that aren't.
A necessary step, but not a pretty one no matter how we slice it.
...coral is one of the oldest, most durably-tolerant species on the planet, and not (generally) this delicate snowflake of a clade that will suddenly die because temps ticked up a degree or two?
Coral is HUNDREDS of milions of years old.
It has tolerated MUCH warmer and MUCH cooler conditions.
It has tolerated MUCH *faster swings* in temperature.
It will be here long after the last Green Ecomarxist's voice insisting that "coral is all dying!!" has faded away.
-Styopa