From the ocean weather will eat this idea alive department comes a ridiculous bit of wishful thinking from the world’s lead scientist on “the coral reefs are going to die and its all your fault” discipline.
Yes, it is our hot headed buddy from Brisbane, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, with what just might be the wackiest climate change technology proposal ever – it is his blue tarp moment:
20 Aug: Sky News Australia: Shade cloth could save Barrier Reef
Scientists have proposed stringing up shade cloth over coral reefs and sending electric currents through the sea to help marine ecosystems weather the effects of climate change.”
“The paper also discusses the genetic engineering of species to help them adapt better to climate change, and mitigating ocean acidification by adding base minerals to the water.”
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg has pointed out conventional approaches to climate change have so far failed to prevent damage to the reef.”
Here’s the paper: Rau, G., McLeod, E.L. & Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2012) The need for new ocean conservation strategies in a high-carbon dioxide world Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate1555
And here’s the money quote:
In particular, various methods for reducing or mitigating thermal stress in corals have been proposed or demonstrated. For example, efforts to artificially shade sections of a reef during periods of thermal stress using buoyant shade cloth have been applied on the Great Barrier Reef. Light exacerbates the effect of heat stress and causes reef-building corals to bleach. Consequently, shading corals can reduce the extent of coral bleaching.
Jo Nova does the math and points out:
The Great Barrier Reef has an area of 348,000 square kilometers. It’s bigger than the UK, Holland and Switzerland combined. So perhaps we could just cover 1%, that’s only three and a half thousand square kilometers and then ask the water to stay in one spot?
Not to mention the the first storm that rolls through will pretty much blow any tarps, cloths, covers, etc to bits and beyond. Ah, I love the sound of shredded grant money in the morning.
I should apologize for this comparison to inventor Rube Goldberg, who made wacky looking inventions that actually worked. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg’s invention is not only wacky, but unworkable.
Loved this bit from Jo Nova:
Alistair Hobday Research Scientist – Marine and Atmospheric Research at CSIRO said novel solutions are required. “We need to be mature enough to listen to all sorts of arguments.”
To which Jo Nova, unfunded non government critic said: We need scientists who are mature enough to spot a plan that is bonkers.
h/t to WUWT reader Martin Clark
Did he explain how to deal with this issue from NOAA? “Most reef-building corals contain photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae, that live in their tissues. The corals and algae have a mutualistic relationship.”
It occurs to me that coral reef bleaching may well be similar to the beetle kill epidemic that’s ravaged forests in west – a natural, cyclical renewal of the ecosystem. No need to panic.
“To which Jo Nova, unfunded non government critic said: We need scientists who are mature enough to spot a plan that is bonkers.”
But when you have a consensus, and all agree that you have a consensus, then you have given up the critical attribute of skepticism (what a dirty word). When you have given up skepticism, you don’t look at all sides of an issue and you don’t fully consider risk/benefits of proposals. Is it any wonder that such people come up with proposals that are bonkers?
This idea of using shade cloth to protect the coral was proposed by Marine Biologist Russell Hore in November 2006. He conceded it was impractical to shade the entire Great Barrier Reef.
RUSSELL HORE: I don’t think we would ever consider shading the whole reef. Logistically that would be an impossible thing to do, but what we are trying to prove at the moment is the fact that there is a relationship.
If you can reduce two of the major factors that cause coral bleaching, one of them being light intensity, one of them being temperature, that you can help to reduce the levels of coral bleaching occurring.
Source – “AM – Shadecloth might protect Great Barrier Reef from global warming”
Link at – http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1780258.htm
Not sure about electricity giving a boost to living coral. Sounds a bit Frankensciency -It’s alive! It’s alive! But completely artificial reefs built with electricity have been proposed.
Seacrete (or Biorock), a substance formed by electro-accumulation of minerals dissolved in seawater, was invented by Prof. Wolf Hilbertz, an architect by training. There were even plans to use the technology to build a new nation on shallows in the Indian Ocean, which sounds a bit Bond villainy. Hilbertz’s new neighbours were not amused.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorock
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/04/27/12-fantastic-floating-cities-and-artificial-islands/
Or the Aussies could use titanium net and a boatload of money to protect a tiny bit of their reef
Okinotorishima
A tiny island in the Philippine Sea
China was not amused.
So, this genius wishes to put a sunshade over the reef? I suspect that this would kill the coral, as the symbiotic algae that lives in the coral depends on photosynthesis. Taking the sun away will kill the algae, and thus the coral. (as has been pointed out by others, I see).
I do not support Mr. Hoegh-Guldberg’s views generally, but, low-voltage stimulation of coral growth has been successful in several locations. You can review the technology here: http://www.biorock.net/
I think that such a method could be useful in repairing small areas of the GBR that may need some help to recover from severe damage, but I do not think it would be economically viable to apply it to large areas.
If the centerfold of your favorite magazine is Michael Mann, you might just be a green-neck.
If your recently approved grant proposal was originally a story rejected by the SyFy Channel as being “to bizarre”, you might be a green-neck.
If you’ve ever considered wearing a gas mask to capture your own CO2 emissions, you might be a green-neck.
If you’ve replaced your black-velvet portrait of Elvis with a black-velvet portrait of Al Gore, you might be a green-neck.
Genetic engineering can extend the life-span of humans. It can be used for good or evil purposes, many of which we are not presently aware. It will change every aspect of our culture. In scientific research when you open one door of discovery you find many more doors across the threshold. I wrote an ebook mystery novel on the subject titled BLOODGUILTY which is available on KINDLE bookstore by RAYMOND THOR.
Click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_i_0?rh=k%3Araymond+thor%2Ci%3Adigital-text&keywords=raymond+thor&ie=UTF8&qid=1344014633
It was found that the compounds in sunscreen cause reef organisms to die (even in astoundingly small amounts). So who’s going to be spreading that tarp? And will they be using sunscreen?
I think it would be more effective to tell all the sunscreen covered “scientists” to stop diving on the reef… rather like the ones that were traipsing around studying frog deaths … and spreading the fungus that was causing frog deaths in the process…
I think we’re entering a new era of “Studied to Death”…
348,000 sq km is 1000 x 1000 m2 x 348,000 or 348 x 10^9 sq m. At one mm thickness, that’s 348 x 10^6 cubic meters of petroleum product. (Plastics…) or about 348,000,000 TONS of plastic to be floated onto the ocean… That is, at 6.5 bbl / ton; about 53,538,000 bbl of oil and would cost roughly $5,353,800,000 just for the oil. That’s over $5 Billion of oil.
Then you get to make it into plastic, transport and deploy it, and haul it out whenever a storm approaches. Oh, and keep it in place.
Now, being 1 mm thick, it will not be very strong. So you either get to juice those numbers up by 4 x to 5 x or you get to do the same thing all over again each and every year…
Sounds to me like the kind of “stupid” you get when a “climate scientist” starts trying to pretend they are an engineer…
I’ll leave the “how to deploy and retrieve” 348 Mega-tons of plastic in a couple of days when a storm develops and the cost of the massive fleet and staff as an “exercise for the student”…