From Andrew Bolt at Australia’s Herald Sun below, some sharp evidence in a new paper that the “coral bleaching” scare of the Great Barrier Reef is unfounded and mostly made up.
This study indicates that at the scale of the whole GBR there was no net decline in live hard coral cover between 1995 and 2009.
I can hear Dr. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (who rudely and selfishly disrupted my talk with David Archibald and Bob Carter last year in Brisbane) screaming all the way here in Washington DC as I post this. Since he’ll read this when he gets the linkback, maybe he’ll take time to read the funding acknowledgments (like your buddy Monbiot did) in Soon’s 2003, 2005, and 2007 papers and realize he’s just playing “follow the leader”. Ove, you’ve been bad and been had. – Anthony
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Latest research: no, the Reef isn’t being killed by warming
Julia Gillard claims global warming is already killing the Great Barrier Reef:
Australian natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef are already being damaged, and the risk of coastal flooding could double by the end of the century.
Warmist alarmist Sir Nicholas Stern made the same claim:
The snows on Kilimanjaro are virtually gone, the Barrier Reef is probably going…
The ABC was already hypeing up the destruction of the reef by global warming in 2002:
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says up to 10 per cent of the reef has been lost to bleaching since 1998.
ABC host Kerry O’Brien back then treated the death of the reef as imminent:
It’s not just Australia’s farmlands which are threatened by global warming, the greenhouse effect could also spell disaster for coral reefs around the world, including our own natural wonder, the Great Barrier Reef.
As Australia prepares for another hot summer, one man is on a mission to capture as many corals as possible on high-definition camera before even more stretches of once-spectacular reef are bleached bone-white.
And remember the alarmism of prominent warmist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg?
In 1998, he warned that the reef was under pressure from global warming, and much had turned white.
He later admitted the reef had made a “surprising” recovery.
In 1999 he claimed global warming would cause mass bleaching of the reef every two years from 2010.
He yesterday admitted it hadn’t.
In 2006, he warned high temperatures meant “between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef could die within a month”.
He later admitted this bleaching had a “minimal impact”.
All that alarmism, relentlessly pushed by this desperately dishonest government, is now blown out of the water by the latest research by Townsville’s Australian Institute of Marine Science:
Monitoring data collected annually from fixed sites at 47 reefs across 1300 km of the GBR indicate that overall regional coral cover was stable (averaging 29% and ranging from 23% to 33% cover across years) with no net decline between 1995 and 2009….
Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) outbreaks and storm damage were responsible for more coral loss during this period than either bleaching or disease despite two mass bleaching events and an increase in the incidence of coral disease.
While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980’s suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995. Instead, fluctuations in coral cover at subregional scales (10–100 km), driven mostly by changes in fast-growing Acroporidae, occurred as a result of localized disturbance events and subsequent recovery.
You have been deceived again and again and again.
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Here’s the paper: (link to PDF)
Disturbance and the Dynamics of Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef (1995–2009)
Kate Osborne,* Andrew M. Dolman,¤a Scott C. Burgess,¤b and Kerryn A. Johns
Abstract
Coral reef ecosystems worldwide are under pressure from chronic and acute stressors that threaten their continued existence. Most obvious among changes to reefs is loss of hard coral cover, but a precise multi-scale estimate of coral cover dynamics for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is currently lacking. Monitoring data collected annually from fixed sites at 47 reefs across 1300 km of the GBR indicate that overall regional coral cover was stable (averaging 29% and ranging from 23% to 33% cover across years) with no net decline between 1995 and 2009. Subregional trends (10–100 km) in hard coral were diverse with some being very dynamic and others changing little. Coral cover increased in six subregions and decreased in seven subregions. Persistent decline of corals occurred in one subregion for hard coral and Acroporidae and in four subregions in non-Acroporidae families. Change in Acroporidae accounted for 68% of change in hard coral. Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) outbreaks and storm damage were responsible for more coral loss during this period than either bleaching or disease despite two mass bleaching events and an increase in the incidence of coral disease. While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980’s suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995. Instead, fluctuations in coral cover at subregional scales (10–100 km), driven mostly by changes in fast-growing Acroporidae, occurred as a result of localized disturbance events and subsequent recovery.
This is a curious publication, in the online journal PLoS One. Kate Osborne, according to the listed affiliation is in the centre of GBR studies at AIMS, though she isn’t on the current research staff list. She does have a long publicaion history re the reef.
So I looked through the paper to see how they reconciled with the recent Science paper of De’ath et al, recommended by AIMS here. They note a decline of 14.2% in coral cover since 1990.
While Osborne et al refer to a number of papers by De’ath, a colleague at AIMS, this one isn’t mentioned at all. Odd.
Rattus Norvegicus says on July 1, 2011 at 9:46 pm
“So, here are their qualifications:..”
which says absolutely nothing about the validity of their research.
you have no arguments left.
‘I am very much afraid that the politicians and variouls earth botherers are still running the show.’
Unfortunately this is true, nevertheless the Denialati is confident of ultimate victory in Oz because our predictions are better.
@ur momisugly Rattus Norvegicus says:
July 1, 2011 at 9:46 pm
So, here are their qualifications…
To be fair: qualifications (or lack of) are not the point. Ditto with funding (although I would prefer it not to come out of my pocket). All that matters are reproducible data and evidence. THAT is where they failed. And that is where Alarmists always fail, which is why they consistently launch their own attacks on sceptics by use of argument from authority, ad hominem, argument by consensus, and generally anti-scientific behaviour. All we have to do is say “Show me the data and I’ll show you a failed hypothesis.”
Rattus, The point you are attempting to make eludes me.
Are you claiming the studies quoted in this post are deficient in some way, and if so, where is your evidence?
Or are you claiming that the scientists, despite being published, don’t actually have a large enough publishing record to be credible?
Or are are you merely doing what you usually do, which is to cast doubt on studies which don’t fit your alarmist scenario?
@Rattus
The data have been collected by various folks over the years:
“We thank all past and present members of the Australian Institute of Marine Science Long-term Monitoring Program who contributed to the collection of the data used here.”
The data seem to be available in the supplementary information. If you doubt the trends, you could put your own lines through the data.
I wouldn’t do these guys down because of a lack of experience with corals. The question is, can they analyse the data that were collected by other people?
Did you actually read the paper Anthony? Because the discussion section speaks very plainly about clear evidence that raises serious concerns about the GBR’s sustainability with climate change and that the purpose of their research was to provide a much needed, useful baseline for monitoring future changes. You seem to have read the thing and not only arrived at an understanding that is 180 degrees from that of the authors, but also seem to think that misinterpreting one paper overturns an entire body of research that the paper in question, in actual fact, affirms. Which, simply speaking, just ain’t how science works.
There is dead coral spread over wide lattitudes as evidence of previous changes in climate. As temperatures change, coral migrates. I would have thought movement as much as health, would be the indicator of any warming.
If you’re an American, you need to understand that the extremist agenda being promoted in Australia reflects a relentless campaign by old guard European Union-style socialist groups to separate Australia from the new world (America) and the region in which Australia lives (Asia). We need Americans to take an interest in our attempts to save Australia from zealots who are using junk climate science as a trojan horse to overturn our free enterprise system. I’m reluctant to describe what is going on in such doctrinaire cliches, but it’s the most technically accurate description. Most Australians are vehemently opposed to what is going on, but the left alliance running the country, which two-thirds of the population doesn’t want, is possible because there is no constitutional obligation to hold federal elections for another 29 months.
There is some confusion here. The paper by De’arth et al. concerned calcification rate not coral bleaching. There is much controversy with that paper and if Nick read that paper he will read that those authors do not attribute a slight decline in calcification to climate change but leave it as an open question. Previous papers by a co-author of that paper, Lough, had reported that coral calcificaiton was accelerating in recent history. Nevertheless, that is calcification issue and not bleaching. Professors are reluctant to even take on a PhD student in bleaching studies to supervise for 4-5 years as a GBR bleaching event may not even occur during the students whole PhD; making it difficult to look at this issue in situ. The paper in question clearly shows that the main impact of coral decline has been crown-of-thorns (COTS) starfish. Echinoderms, as a group of organisms, have a tendency to go through population booms and busts. In the 1980s there was much published that the entire GBR would be consumed by COTS as their population boom was due to human influences but then the population went bust. The GBR is still very much there some 30 years on and as the paper that this discussion concludes, it looks like it will be there for some many centuries yet. Yes there are threats, as there are to any life, but there is no evidence that it is in decline. The GBR spreads along a coastline equivalent to from Miami to New York and has the worlds’ best protection as a Worlds Heritage area. There is no entire body of evidence to suggest that it is in any way in decline. The decline data is all cherry picking.
All these old chestnuts keep emerging from the mire. Can’t these people think up a scare not heard before?
Corals, as we all know, like warmth that’s why they live in the tropics. Occasionally their algal symbiot needs changing and bleaching ensues. New algae soon grows and the corals continue. Corals like rising sea levels it reveals more space to expand. Falling sea levels on the other hand kill them dead. PM Gillard should be told that the GBR is only 8000 years old. During the last ice age it was dry land.
The temperature at the summit of Kilimanjaro has resolutely remained below zero ever since the glacier melt scare started some 150 years ago.
Richard G says:
July 2, 2011 at 12:02 am
Richard, I vividly remember a TV program from the early 70s documenting the rise of the Crown of Thorns starfish. You are absolutely correct in the doomsday tone of the reporting. I just assumed, after watching the program, I would never get to see the GBR. After all, it was being eaten up and unless I flew to Australia immediately, it would be gone.
I do like the way the recovery was quietly unreported.
The starfish threat was replaced by the global warming threat, a bleaching instead of an eating.
Same story. Bleaching is overcome with recovery.
I really like this story because someone is actually monitoring the coral.
Jit (and Rattus),
I think the data was collected by the Long Term Monitoring Program. I think Kate Osborne and Scott Burgess, at least, have been members of that program, and their names appear as coauthors on some previous reports. And Kerryn Johns has previously worked with Kate Osborne. So I think they do have a history with the data. I’m just curious why no mention of De’ath’s paper.
Gillard (The Aussie PM) has moved position, yet again, and is spinning out of control using weasle words like install a “current fixed price” (Per t/CO2 – AKA a carbon tax) “as soon as possible” claiming that she never meant to use the word “tax” in her announcements/statements, cliaming she never meant to “mislead” people on a “carbon tax” that she said she would not introduce during the Govn’t she lead and claiming all the statements about a “carbon tax” and all the “negativity” is ALL Tony Abbotts’ (Opposition leader) doing.
Gillard, you will be gone before you know what happend.
Re Nick Stokes, July 2, 2011 at 1:35 am
” So I looked through the paper to see how they reconciled with the recent Science paper of De’ath et al, recommended by AIMS here. They note a decline of 14.2% in coral cover since 1990″.
Nick, I suggest you do a little more research for us on your own, since you bring up one paper. This 14% decline was based on studies of how many fixed sites of the GBR, what years did it cover? (notice that coral cover ranged from 23% to 33% during the period of this study) You find it curious, please follow your curiosity.
“Monitoring data collected annually from fixed sites at 47 reefs across 1300 km of the GBR indicate that overall regional coral cover was stable (averaging 29% and ranging from 23% to 33% cover across years) with no net decline between 1995 and 2009….
Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) outbreaks and storm damage were responsible for more coral loss during this period than either bleaching or disease despite two mass bleaching events and an increase in the incidence of coral disease.
While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980’s suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995”
Mick,
You’re right – I misread – the 14.2% drop figure referred to calcification rather than cover. But still, it’s a relevant paper, surely? Whether or not the drop in calcification can be confidently attributed to climate change.
“the risk of coastal flooding could double by the end of the century”
“the greenhouse effect could also spell disaster for coral reefs around the world”
“between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef could die within a month”
Could, could, could. Never will. This way they’re always telling the truth, for in an uncertain world like ours anything could happen after all, even if in fact it does not.
If you put snake oil on your hair, it could get up to 34.12% more vibrant. Gimme the muny fast.
The problem is with the Australian Education system at school which has become 3rd world standard since 1990 abouts.. You are now witnessing the results. Third rate science third rate politicians third rate everything. There are only a few intelligent/well educated science ones left. Its taken them 5 years of agonizing 100% AGW belief to reach current 50% belief due to very poor understanding of science re above comments from rattus and other australian resulting of poor science education..
OT but SSN for June is 37 is
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/greenwch/spot_num.txt
The trend is now suggesting maybe that Solar 24 has peaked?
No, please don’t. Trolling and highjacking are not appreciated.
Mick;
re the Crown-of-Thorns and corals;
predator and prey are linked; the CoT would have eliminated itself if it killed the reef. Population crashes of predators who’ve been too successful are common, from raptors to wolves.
Rattus said, “Not exactly a crack team for such an earthshaking result.”
No Change = Earthshaking Result
Life goes on.
They’ll be pouring White King over the side of boats if this keeps up.
Does this one qualify for the Climate Fail Files?
Getting really p****d off by these failed predictions. Here’s another about to explode unless warming gets a real hurry on:
“Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012”
http://dailybayonet.com/?p=8683
A pox on global scaring scammers, threatening economies with their malignant alarmist baloney.
Tom says:
July 2, 2011 at 3:13 am
We need Americans to take an interest in our attempts to save Australia from zealots who are using junk climate science as a trojan horse to overturn our free enterprise system.
Hey Tom, this ‘Australia’ you’re talking about, is it the one west of New Zealand and a little south of Papua New Guinea?? In the Australia I’m from we would probably politely suggest that you take a Bex and have a little lie down because it is this type of illogical and unsubstantiated hyperbole that puts many of us skeptics in such a difficult position when trying to calmly debate the issues with those convinced climate catastrophe is at hand.