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Expert: Scientists exaggerated coral bleaching story
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Anecdotally, in early 2016, I spent over a week diving the GBR (24 dives) starting north from Cairns to Lizard Island and also a few dives out in the Coral Sea. I was surprised how great everything looked given all the stories of massive destruction. Aside from my day science/engineering job, I’m a certified dive instructor closing in on 500 dives worldwide. I’m not a marine biologist, but I know what good and bad reef conditions and fish populations look like. I was favorably impressed along the whole ribbon reefs (1-10) chain heading north from Cairns. I’m not saying that fisheries and reefs are not stressed by multiple factors, I’m saying get out in the world and see things for yourselves to get better perspective (as we hear a lot from Willis E). I shot dozens of hours of underwater footage and plan to go back in five years and in 10 years to compare.
I am very much a skeptic on CAGW (yes, there’s warming but it’s mostly natural and almost entirely beneficial). However, I do know that the oceans need to be better taken care of and a legitimate role of our US federal government (according to the US Constitution) is to put pressure on, and negotiate treaties with other countries in the area of ocean and fisheries protection. I support this (one of the few things our government is presently doing that is within constitutional bounds and that I support).
And one other comment: please try to eliminate your sunscreen use while in the water around coral reefs. Wet suits, dive skins, rash guards, etc are great alternatives. Thanks!
Forty years ago when I lived in North Queensland (Townsville) the same story was rife as was the Crown of Thorns starfish eating the corals to extinction. New coral grows. The old stuff dies off.
It’s like Earth Hour, when they show you a tiny portion of a suburb without lights and tell you the whole of the city has gone dark.
It has been removed from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority website, which published the rebuttal of the alarmism, but it did describe the previous bleaching in 1998 as 50% of the reef had at least 2% bleaching. Not dead but bleached.
I suspect that the 22% mortality is still a bit dodgy, especially considering the map in the link that shows how little has been surveyed. Missing is the very far north that probably has symbiotic algae of the same species but different strains that could handle the extra heat and sunshine.
June 3, 2016 9:40 pm
Not sure of this has been mentioned in other parts of WUWT but an associated story to this is that Australia’s ABC used fake coral bleaching images in their stories.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/abc-blasted-for-using-misleading-picture-of-great-barrier-reef-after-greenpeace-admitted-it-was-fake/news-story/cbf03cc5e4e7380688eda25aacfba166
Exactly Tom. I’ve been waiting for the ABC to get its guernsey. This country will never progress until this tax payer-funded institution starts educating its presenters and its so-called investigative journalists start investigating. This once-great institution is becoming a millstone around our national neck, not only on environmental science but also its politically- correct stance in reporting a lot of other news. A pox on their house.
Sure Nick, but Environmentalists who are supposed to be the watchdog for nature distort or lie about it to the public many times, it is all over the place at Facebook where many closeminded warmists there beat the drum on this media manufactured lie for their cause. That damage is done Nicholas which angers me because it was an OBVIOUS LIE,by simply looking at the media claims.
Telling the truth to the public is what they should be doing.
That’s what you came to argue…poster claim of “non-story” vs one “frightening story” scientist opinion?
What the original article claimed was that an “expert”, Dr Reichelt, exposed the “exaggerations” of scientists. I drew attention to what the expert actually said, which was that there is a story. So then we are left with just the experts here.
Your mistaken assumption is that none here are experts in corals. Depending on your undoubtedly skewed definition (Alarmist Hughes an expert, the national reef commission not?) some here are experienced divers who have written extensively about corals and AGW and ‘ocean acidification’ and are sufficiently expert for these purposes. As is Jim Steele, who previously explained the most common and benign form of bleaching.
June 3, 2016 10:04 pm
Great Barrier Reef board members accused of conflict of interest over links to mining firms…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-29/reef-board-members-in-conflict-of-interest-claims/5052558
Typical Spaatch.
You could have disputed the article with data or examples of where they are wrong, but no. You put up a link accusing them of having “links” with the devil. The classic religious green response.
I bet that even if you were given indisputable evidence that James Cook Uni and Prof Hughes had manipulated the data that you would think this was ok because it was all for the cause.
June 3, 2016 10:05 pm
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
What other falsehoods are environmental activists like Tim Flannery and complicit media – ABC, Fairfax, BBC, CNN etc etc, willing to spread in order to push their ever-dangerous global warming agenda?
I say dangerous, as this particular incident of blatant climate change alarmism endagers Australia’s international reputation, especially its tourist industry and the livelihoods of the good people who are employed in the region.
Who will be made accountable or held responsible for the blatant lies, exaggeration of data and wreckless alarmism? No one, of course. Because again, the worst any Reef or climate change alarmist can ever be accused of is an excess of virtue, in order to “Save the planet”.
Ask Tim (the flim flam man) Flannery if he feels any responsibility for the millions (billions?) spent on desalination plants sitting idle (still costing millions to maintain on ‘maintenance mode’) around Australia because he crusaded that all the dams would run dry. No he doesn’t give a flying rats – to be sure, to be sure if it dribbles out of his mouth it’s bullshitzer!!
He’ll be OK if the Liberals win.
If Labor wins then you can expect the usual left-wing politicisation to occur and he may be in trouble.
If the Greens obtain the balance of power in the Senate he’ll be in more doo-doo than a Werribee duck.
But the Reef will still be OK no matter which political persuasion is in power.
Flannery is Australia’s version of Paul Ehrlich. Like a sort of “reverse Cassandra” (she who always prophesied doom correctly but was never believed) they continue to preach doom and disaster, have never been right yet, but for some reason are always believed.
Shame that Reichelt felt the need to nod in the direction of the scaremongers but no surprise that Nick Stokes would weigh in (can never resist a bit of stirring, Nick, can you). Corals do what they do and they’ve survived longer than we have in warmer conditions (which they like) and colder conditions (which they are less keen on) and more genuinely acid conditions (which many of them can tolerate quite well).
So let’s just leave them to get on with it and concentrate on things that really matter, eh!
June 3, 2016 10:23 pm
Hi from Oz. My understanding (from a recent WUWT story IIRC) is that ‘bleached’ coral is not ‘dead’, the hard (non-living) calcium carbonate ‘polyp hotel’ sub-structure has just been vacated by the polyps that built it (and give it its vivid colours). They apparently vacate because the water conditions are temporarily unsuitable (problems with temperature, turbidity, cyclones, lack of food, COTS, etc.). When the water conditions improve (but may be 5-10 years later), polyps return and repopulate the coral and then Voila, the coral is ‘alive’ again. But the rent-seekers seem to always forget to mention this wee detail about coral regeneration, and prefer to cry ‘the whole Reef is DYING!!!’ in order to keep their scam going. BTW – the rent-seekers seem to be getting really worried down here in Oz because they just released a ‘report’ that puts a price to ‘Save the Reef’ of A$16 billion. Sounds like a last desperate attempt to blackmail the next Australian government into gold-plating their future, because we are in the middle of a Federal election campaign here.
From my reading it MAY take 5 to 10 years for some bleaching events to be reversed, but it can also be in as little as 6 months. It depends on the cause, and temperature changes are often the shortest lasting . That’s because while that particular polyp may not like that temperature, a different one can handle it just fine and moves into the emptied reef.
Also, killing water temperatures are transient. Like heat waves or cold snaps on land, these events temporarily make an area uninhabitable for species at the limit of their range.
The same, exactly opposite effect takes place here on the Canadian prairie. A series of mild winters will see non native species encroach and thrive, then a drought or extreme winter will kill them off. Nature doesn’t know not to colonize unstable places. Throw in pollution, viruses and what we don’t even know yet.
It depends on the bleaching. There are three types on our reefs here in South Florida.
1. Runoff pollution caused. The organic matter decomposes, releases trace hydrogen sulfide, and kills the coral polyps resulting in bleaching. Can take ~10 years for the reef to fully re-establish. H2S has a coral/shrimp/crab LD50 of 30ppb! I snorkeld the US National Park Service ‘Coral Trail’ off St. Croix USVI the year after a major hurricane and personally witnessed this type of pollution induced bleaching. Especially affected staghorn corals. Not so much brain corals. See also essay Shell Games for how Australian researcher Fabricius gamed this in her PNG studies in Milne Bay.
2. Transitional symbiont bleaching. The coral polyps are alive, and filter feed until a new symbiont suite is established. This is apparently most of the middle and southern GBR case at present. The transition is months, as the article reports. 75% recovery from a normal and natural event in 6 months.
3. Symbiont bleaching which does not reestablish, perhaps because of lack of suitablly adapted local symbionts given the degree of water change. In which case, the polyps are increasingly stressed from malnourishment and will eventually die (maybe 1-2 years). Then you have the up to 10 year recovery as new better adapted polyps repopulate the coral exoskeletons. This seems to be the case in some of the northern GBR sector, 22% of the total.
Ristvan, you forgot the big one. Cold.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/01/record-cold-in-florida-kills-reef-coral/
ACO, Nope. I was diving those reefs at that time. They bleached some (type 2); they did not die. Came back just fine that spring/ summer. And, slowly bleached again during summer when warm water returned and they had to again adjust symbionts. Was still visible during the late July recreational ‘bug’ catch (spiny lobster preseason free for all). That reef is about 300 meters off my condo balcony on the Atlantic beach in North Fort Lauderdale. Swim out from the beach with dive flag buoy. You can even snorkel the shallowest portions. No need for a dive boat unless visiting the deeper two of the three reef bands to spearfish grouper and snapper. There are at least 10 dive shops within a 2 mile radius of my place– for a good reason. Closest is just across A1A in the next block toward the InterCoastal. Get my dive stuff there.
BoyfromTottenham “My understanding (from a recent WUWT story IIRC) is that ‘bleached’ coral is not ‘dead’, the hard (non-living) calcium carbonate ‘polyp hotel’ sub-structure has just been vacated by the polyps that built it (and give it its vivid colours). ”
It isn’t even that bad. The polyps are home to algae (which give it the colour) in a loose symbiotic relationship. When the water temperature changes the polyps expel the algae and form another relationship with algae better suited to the water temperature.
Most of the time this happens within days. If it takes longer the polyps have to resort to filter feeding. If it takes too long the polyps may die (and leave vacant rooms in the hotel) but will be replaced by budding polyps nearby or by new coral after a mass spawning.
June 3, 2016 10:35 pm
It is all about blocking the Adani and Carmichael coal mines in Western Queensland. The lies start at the very beginning. They say run-off from the mines will damage the reef. The mines are hundreds of kilometres inland with the Great Dividing Range between the mines and the coast. So all streams run west away from the coast, not east towards the reefs.
From there various environmental groups funded by Greenpeace and WWF have engaged in lawfare to stop Adani going ahead despite the strictest possible environmental reports at state and federal level giving the go ahead.
The set-up of the mine and rail and port has cost $3billion so far and the owner is ready to walk away. He owns coal fired power plants in India and is responsible for spreading electricity to millions of people and to manufacturing in India. The Indian economy grew faster than China last year as they lifted themselves out of poverty. Yet this threatens trade between Australia and India because the Indians say it is too difficult to do business in Australia.
So here we have another case of the social justice people in Greenpeace and WWF deciding electricity is good for their business and lifestyle but it must no be shared amongst the poor.
Hypocrites hang your heads in shame.
“AllyKat June 3, 2016 at 11:50 pm
Especially if the “other” country is supposed to be relatively corruption free.”
Australia was a former British penal colony. At one time all one needed to do was steal a loaf of bread to be imported courtesy of The Crown. So, Australia likes to give the world the impression it is corruption free, which is not the whole truth. It’s difficult to do business here because of the various coloured “tape” businesses are tied up in, especially, green tape. It’s one reason why car making is no longer done here.
..The mid-east, fossil-oil $$$$ windfall, is never, ever, “media-demonized”, but fossil-coal is ? This is another Economic, Media-biased, money and manpower crippling subversion, (Stage 2) at its most blatant ……. …… ..Both fossils are only here now, because during life’s early prolific-evolution, Co2, was at 4,000 ppm. Today, at just 400 ppm ( rising at 1 millionth every 5 years). This is A. irrelevant ? B beneficial ? C normal ? D Uncontrollable ? You view is defiantly irrelevant, because the Media prostitutes says this is a disaster and all life sustaining-western (non-moslum) -productivity (particularly using the wrong fossil) should cease immediately. (That is how corrupt the media/ un/ eu etc. is, today). ………………Today in submarines, sailors breathe Co2 at 1,000 ppm, with no adverse effect because Co2 is an essential, trace (life / food growing) gas, (that turbo-charged the evolution of life on this (then very hot) but cooling planet). Oil and coal, seen now both as the fossil-remains, of the darling twins, (COALin and OILave), from their formative / baby , (hot) evolution years……………..As Co2 always follows temperature-changes, observable in winter, when Co2 follows the temperature down to, and @ 150ppm, plants stop growing . When the season (temperature) changes up, the Co2 level (plant food) rushes back up and (plant) spring, is here again. (More Co2 = More food. duh) Farmers know this, (green-house managers deliberately pump in extra Co2 to boost plant growth) but the media makes sure, (any) real-world knowledge, is ridiculed (Stage 2. again) ….Since the last mini ice-age, the sun has been warming the world at 0.8* per century ( with or without us/ and has before us (and will continue after us))…… Consequently Co2 is also (beneficially for us) following temperature (up) at 1/millionth per 5 years. And since the un-corrupted data from satellites , (as expected), no detectable warming for 18 years and (balloon) troposphere-temperature readings are now back up to where it was, 58 years ago, (at the start of Al Bore’s “global-cooling” scare campaign ) and the media probably knows that too, but I digress (again)……, [rest trimmed. .mod]
[Your words will be more convincing with formatted complete sentences and paragraph organization. .mod]
MODERATOR — the above needs to be snipped. Anti-Moslem/conspiracy theory ranting.
[Noted. Thank you. .mod]
@ Jack June 3. It is their livelihood, the same thing is happening all over the planet. Some of the ” Scientific” reports coming out in BC Canada are the same. ” Massive flooding combined with sea level rise and unprecedented rain falls in the next 50 years will lead to the inundation of the Fraser Valley and Vancouver” It makes your head explode!
I agree with you that it’s all about blocking coal mines (and also votes in the election) but I must point out that Adani and Carmichael are in the Burdekin catchment and water from there does flow to the reef lagoon. I know because I’ve been there- my brother in law has a cattle property very close nearby.
I’ve noticed – on the Internet, of course – this weird tendency to use “bias” for “biased”. I think it comes from sloppy pronunciation of the final consonant combined with insufficient reading and inadequate knowledge of the language. I suspect the same causes are responsible for “close minded” instead of “closed minded”. I’m waiting to see someone trying to sell a “use car”.
One that’s got me fuming is forecastED instead of forecast
and even more enraging is TREADED water instead of TROD
I noted it first some years ago and it seems to have become widespread
Tread/treading/trod
does no one teach English anymore, with regard to tenses?
I have also come across shined instead of shone, rather frequently ,
ie
her eyes/face shined with glee
he shined the light around the room.
I frequently see “shined” for “shone” in American novels. When “shine” means “emit or reflect light” the past tense should be “shone”, but when it means “make shiny” then I think “shined” would be acceptable. Or maybe not.
And aren’t you glad we’ve got this far without me banging on about commas or the dreaded “tow the line”?
June 3, 2016 10:39 pm
About that pure water from desalinization plants:
They could have designed a nice label of the sort “Stupendous Water from The Snowies” and marketed it world wide. Okay, to be honest it would have to be transported to and sold from one of the mountain towns, but that’s a small issue.
~~~~~
As for bleaching coral – this story is getting tedious.
June 3, 2016 10:45 pm
What other falsehoods are environmental activists like Tim Flannery and complicit media – ABC, Fairfax, BBC, CNN etc etc, willing to spread in order to push their ever-dangerous global warming agenda?
I say dangerous, as this particular incident of blatant climate change alarmism endagers Australia’s international reputation, especially its tourist industry and the livelihoods of the good people who are employed in the region.
Who will be made accountable or held responsible for the blatant lies, exaggeration of data and wreckless alarmism? No one, of course. Because again, the worst any Reef or climate change alarmist can ever be accused of is an excess of virtue, in order to “Save the planet”.
There have been whispers that coral bleaching never happened before the end of last century and has grown progressively worse since.
In fact, think El Nino and Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) as the root cause, neither have anything to do with industrial CO2.
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/moderate-to-strong-el-nino-events-are.html
Well RoHa, when you consider that before 1950 almost nobody spent much time looking at coral, ther couldn’t have been may folks even concerned about it.
There’s a technology effect in play. I’ve noticed it in lots of fields. A new instrument comes out and we suddenly have the ability to measure something we could never measure before. A new telescope, some new medical device, the aqualung, all those things and more. Suddenly we have all this new information but no history with it. Then some idiot comes along and decides whatever he sees using one of these things is “alarming”. He’s never really studied it, but maybe he has a PhD in something so he gets taken seriously.
Maybe “sophomoric” is the term I’m looking for? Someone who has just enough information to be dangerous to himself and others?
@Bartleby. Exactly. Some common sense is required. Can’t just stick to the same old dogma.
When technology improved over the last few decades to allow measurements of parts per billion rather than parts per million, “dangerous” levels of pollutants were found in many more places than previously.
Pretty soon we will be able to measure parts per _trillion_ and then “pollutants” will be found _everywhere_ we look.
June 3, 2016 11:13 pm
This the latest gem from Flim-flam Flannery, quoted in yet another alarmist article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 3rd June:
“This great organism, the size of Germany and arguably the most diverse place on earth, is dying before our eyes. Having watched my father dying two years ago, I know what the signs of slipping away are. This is death, which ever-rising temperatures will allow no recovery from. Unless we act now.
Three-quarters of the Barrier Reef is alive, says the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
But when I turn on the television, you wouldn’t know that our greatest national treasure is on the brink of disappearing. It’s the same old claptrap about jobs and the economy, never mind the fact that it’s always the same, and it never improves no matter who is elected.”
So the government talking about jobs and the economy is ‘claptrap’, but a naturally-occurring event (coral polyps temporarily vacating some of their ‘coral hotels’) is faaar more important. May I live long enough to see justice done to him.
Flannery should wash his mouth out with carbolic, which is what he said CO2 turns into in the oceans.
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/01/fishy-science-ocean-acidification/
“Tim Flannery, head of Australia’s Climate Council, is of the view that CO2 falling into the ocean produces “carbolic acid” or phenol, that useful disinfectant which can still be bought on eBay in the form of soap bars. Flannery is, as always, correct in terms of the prevailing hysteria, if not real-world facts. His prophecy is affirmed by Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OAICA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which agree that
Too much carbon is flooding the ocean with carbolic acid, with devestating (sic) effects on life in the sea.”
June 3, 2016 11:38 pm
All the Suoer 97/98 El Niño coral bleaching recovered in 10 years (alarmists predicted it would take a century).
Another strong El Niño, another incidence of coral bleaching…. Imagine that…which will again recover in….10 years…
Alarmists inflate reality and make absurd and unfounded CAGW predictions to keep the myth alive…When these claims fail, their failure is not reported, and Alarmist just wait for the next one-off event to propagandize
The world is getting fed up with alarmists constantly crying wolf, when none exist…. Then the alarmist blame the absence of wolves on….CO2-induce wolf extinction,…
You can’t win with these fools.
the warm-water current that was affecting the east-coast, has now reached the west-coast , (with same effect) . So the sun is now a current ? Coral can’t survive without sun-light (that’s why it only grows neat the surface) . calcium is white, milk is white, crow-skin is white, so “bleaching ” (media weasel-word) is contagious ?
June 3, 2016 11:50 pm
Just in case you dont believe me hahah http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/welcome-to-australia-the-worlds-most-overregulated-nanny-state/news-story/49aa0a414ae87b9ef54e85b40af36b47
June 3, 2016 11:56 pm
I keep hearing about how our children and grandchildren are going to ask us why we did not take action to save the planet. I think they are much more likely to be cursing us for not being fiscally responsible, in between learning Mandarin and toiling to pay the interest on our debt to China.
Yes. It should. The link is paywalled in the UK. I can’t speak for the rest of the world ( Or I can later if I try some experimenting with my VPN ).
I’ve already made my displeasure known about the use of paywalled articles in main stories here. Paying a subscription for a site one might never visit again is not viable.
Yet funnily enough, here on my hols in China, where the likes of Google & Facebook are blocked, it works fine!
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/ee35952c5efabf991b2f062307f4cf53?width=650
June 4, 2016 12:06 am
the warm-water current that was affecting the east-coast, has now reached the west-coast , (with same effect) . So the sun is now a current ? Coral can’t survive without sun-light (that’s why it only grows neat the surface) . calcium is white, milk is white, crow-skin is white, so “bleaching ” (media weasel-word) is contagious ?
June 4, 2016 12:10 am
But even this more measured report does not mention that bleached coral os NOT DEAD. This short NOAA explanation says of bleached coral:
Quote:
Warmer water temperatures can result in coral bleaching. When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. This is called coral bleaching. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html
So bleaching is a natural survival reaction of corals, and they will normally regain their alge after a short while and continue living just as vibrantly as before. It takes two years before bleached coral actually dies. So there is alarmism being built upon alarmism here.
R
June 4, 2016 12:18 am
I have been following this one. Professor Terry Hughes is from James Cook University in Far North Queensland Australia. Professor Terry Hughes is Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.
A month ago he “surveyed” the Great Barrier Reef over a few days in a small chopper using a GoPro and SLR camera.
Remembering the Great Barrier Reef comprises the following according to Wiki.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system[1][2] composed of over 2,900 individual reefs[3] and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi).[4][5] The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia
This is quite a feat to complete over a few days……
Professor Terry Hughes managed to not only survey the Great Barrier Reef in this short time frame but also wrote a report. Terry described the Great Barrier Reef as “Fried”
The report strangely was delivered hot off the press to the Australian Broadcasting Commission, a government funded left leaning media outlet similar to BBC. The report naturally went to The Guardian and disseminated within hours to the Left Twitterati. As happens the report was picked up by the Main stream Media outside Australia and Professor Terry Hugh’s was accepted unchallenged and quickly became global fact.
Professor Terry Hughes had achieved his corrupted scientific objective.
The Great Barrier Marine Park Authority administers the Reef and is a very belated an light criticism of Professor Terry Hughes tax payer funded behaviour.
I believe the report was rushed to market because El Niño was waning, the damage to the GBR was grossly misreported and Professor Terry Hughes had to give it his best shot in the middle of an election campaign in Australia. The Left is strenuously attempting to chane government so they can progress their climate agenda.
Throughout history the catch cry of the left is
THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.
A few salient factors. Professor Terry Hughes viewed shallow coastal coral which is invariably most affected by El Niño events.
Perhaps not commonly understood is that coral grows happily from depths of a few centimetres to depths up to 100 metres. Tidal movement along this coast is up to 10 metres, twice a day.
Also well documented is the coral spawning event at the start of summer each year. This truly is a Bucket List event. The reef becomes lick a muddy river from the all encompassing spawning event. The Great Barrier Reef is seeded via this natural reproductive event annually.
That a Professor could produce a false report which is not condemned by James Cook University and is accepted as fact by all media raises serious accountability issues.
Please feel free to circulate the above as far and as wide as you wish.
Brooke Mañana
June 4, 2016 12:44 am
The Australian exclusive was under Graham Lloyd and Sid Maher.
Notably the other front page story was ‘Lawfare’ risks Adani exit.,
This points out that the reef is being protected from coal mining, so the opponents to the mine are tying it up by the appeal process.
They have not won on the evidence.
Whatever the outcome of this in Australia, it delays and denies the most poor of India the opportunity of clean water and an electricity supply.
Its in INQUIRER ‘A dream to light darkened nights’.
‘Gutam Adani wants to bring Indian villagers into the bright 21st century.’
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/gautam-adanis-dream-to-light-indias-darkened-nights/news-story/0637a58af753b6f9636aefb31d058565
It is shameful that Australians should deny the poor of the world in this way.
June 4, 2016 1:19 am
Hughes tweets:
The first bleaching on the #GreatBarrierReef was in 1998. There is no “cycle”
https://twitter.com/ProfTerryHughes/status/722653679841624064
The BoM says:
Bleaching has been observed on the Great Barrier Reef since 1982,
http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/oceantemp/GBR_Coral.shtml
Prof. Terry Hughes tweets: I showed the results of aerial surveys of #bleaching on the #GreatBarrierReef to my students, And then we wept.
https://twitter.com/ProfTerryHughes/status/722512223067721728
Obviously they wept at the standard of ‘science’ they are being taught.
June 4, 2016 1:42 am
I have been following this one. Professor Terry Hughes is from James Cook University in Far North Queensland Australia. Professor Terry Hughes is Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.
A month ago he “surveyed” the Great Barrier Reef over a few days in a small chopper using a GoPro and SLR camera.
Remembering the Great Barrier Reef comprises the following according to Wiki.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system[1][2] composed of over 2,900 individual reefs[3] and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi).[4][5] The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia
This is quite a feat to complete over a few days……
Professor Terry Hughes managed to not only survey the Great Barrier Reef in this short time frame but also wrote a report. Terry described the Great Barrier Reef as “Fried”
The report strangely was delivered hot off the press to the Australian Broadcasting Commission, a government funded left leaning media outlet similar to BBC. The report naturally went to The Guardian and disseminated within hours to the Left Twitterati. As happens the report was picked up by the Main stream Media outside Australia and Professor Terry Hugh’s was accepted unchallenged and quickly became global fact.
Professor Terry Hughes had achieved his corrupted scientific objective.
The Great Barrier Marine Park Authority administers the Reef and is a very belated an light criticism of Professor Terry Hughes tax payer funded behaviour.
I believe the report was rushed to market because El Niño was waning, the damage to the GBR was grossly misreported and Professor Terry Hughes had to give it his best shot in the middle of an election campaign in Australia. The Left is strenuously attempting to chane government so they can progress their climate agenda.
Throughout history the catch cry of the left is
THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.
A few salient factors. Professor Terry Hughes viewed shallow coastal coral which is invariably most affected by El Niño events.
Perhaps not commonly understood is that coral grows happily from depths of a few centimetres to depths up to 100 metres. Tidal movement along this coast is up to 10 metres, twice a day.
Also well documented is the coral spawning event at the start of summer each year. This truly is a Bucket List event. The reef becomes lick a muddy river from the all encompassing spawning event. The Great Barrier Reef is seeded via this natural reproductive event annually.
That a Professor could produce a false report which is not condemned by James Cook University and is accepted as fact by all media raises serious accountability issues.
Please feel free to circulate the above as far and as wide as you wish.
Brooke Mañana
Sent from my iPhone
I see that the Aussies have succumbed to the British “Centre of Excellence” disease. Here in the UK you can find such “centres” where the concrete of the foundations is still wet. They just know what the future holds. But in the place where I come from we have a saying which will resonate down under: good wine needs no accolades.
i already sent a letter of complaint to the bbc on the reporting of this bleaching event. they had professor john pandolfi from the university of queensland on as the “expert”. not once did prof. pandolfi mention el nino in his scaremongering testimony.i also e mailed prof. pandolfi in regard to this. to date i have yet to hear from either the bbc or prof. pandolfi.
yet only last year he had this to say.
“Coral reefs are the poster child for the damage people are doing to the world’s oceans. Overfishing, pollution and declining water quality have all taken their toll on reefs around the world. Perhaps the most famous example is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, where half of the coral cover has disappeared over the past 25 years.
But increasingly, coral reefs face additional threats: global warming and ocean acidification, which cause coral bleaching and damage the coral’s ability to build reefs, respectively.
These new climate-induced effects, if not reversed by controlling greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with the global pressures already in place, have prompted many coral reef scientists to predict the overall demise of reefs in as little as a couple of decades.
However, research published today in Nature on reefs from the Seychelles provides some hope that all will not be lost for future coral reefs.”
http://theconversation.com/obituaries-for-coral-reefs-may-be-premature-study-finds-36220
June 4, 2016 3:58 am
““it is in serious danger of being irreparably damaged. If we do not act, our children will rightly ask us why didn’t we.’’
Well, research has shown that one way to guarantee the recovery of a tropical coral reef system is to drop a thermonuclear weapon on it.
http://www.livescience.com/2438-bikini-atoll-corals-recovering-atomic-blast.html
June 4, 2016 4:20 am
Terry Hughes does not research
Quote
@St_Kalimna The first bleaching on the #GreatBarrierReef was in 1998. There is no “cycle”
Unquote
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259578623_Impact_of_Global_Warming_on_Coral_Reefs
That documents bleaching back to 1979.
Also look at the list of causes and the history of the Great Barrier Reef.
Some “professor”
June 4, 2016 4:38 am
This is a follow up on the posting of Climatism
June 3, 2016 at 10:45 pm
For several decades, my family and I rented several holiday homes in Hervey Bay. This business was extremely successful mainly because the homes were fitted out to be completely ‘Pet Friendly’. On several occasions we won the prize of being the best pet friendly holiday homes in Queensland. (I still have the old newspaper clippings.)
After the climategate email scandal broke, we noticed a marked increased in all the horror stories about how climate change was causing more severe weather. There was no let up, almost every day there were stories about increased cyclone activity and, of course, sea level change.
Fortunately, in Hervey Bay there is a few very short periods when the tourists and holiday makers dwindle. Summer we have the school holidays, then there is all the public holidays at the beginning of the year. The week before and after Easter are an excellent 2 weeks. In winter, all the southerners show up to get away from the winter in Victoria. Then, as you could expect, there would be a quiet time, but no, the whale watch season starts in July and continues to November. Then summer is back and we start all over.
In the summer of 2009 / 10, there were predictions of 8 cyclones for that summer season, a profitable time for us, school holidays. That summer, we noticed the bookings had dropped off and we had a couple of cancellations. The remaining part of 2010 was OK, but the scare stories in the press and on TV during the year had ramped up considerably. For the summer season of 2010 / 2011 they were predicting 12 cyclones and an early start to the cyclone season.
Bookings dropped like a rock. Even some of our guests that usually booked 12 months in advance, cancelled.
Easter of 2011 was a total disaster, we never had one booking in those 2 weeks. And around Hervey Bay, there were vacancy signs up everywhere. Even the 5 star resort at the pier (the big one Eric) were letting 3 bedroom units go for $80 a night.
This continued for another couple of years with a slow downhill slide to the point I was subsidising others holidays, just to get bums in beds.
There was a simple choice at the end, hang in there and hope things improve or sell up and get out and cut the losses.
So, we sold up, 4 houses. Profit on 2, a very small profit on 1 and 1, just broke even.
We did make the right decision, Hervey Bay has still not got back to where it was, say in 2000. It was a very busy town and especially during the whale watch season. Today the shops at the marina are still vacant. I have my boat there and I could go there and let off a case of dynamite and no one would hear it.
To sum up, I put the decline of Hervey Bay at the feet of the activists, the press and TV and their obsession with climate change and bad weather. Of course, all those cyclones never came to fruition. You and I know there has been a decrease in tropical storms and severity.
It was a shame to see a very successful business, with many awards, collapse. But don’t cry for me, I’m retired now, and loving it !
Chris, All Sea Dogs Ahoy, Hervey Bay.
(just in case some of my old guests get to read this !)
June 4, 2016 5:40 am
No no no. Exaggerating and lying are ok as long as they are effective in communicating to people how dire our situation is: “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Said by their much-revered climate warrior, Stephen Schneider.
It goes without saying that if honest isn’t effective then the problem is defective. There is no C in CAGW, despite efforts to pretend there is as here concerning the GBR. The A is lowercase a because of overlooked natural variability. The GW is uncertain prior to the satellite era thanks to lack of coverage and UHI, and has been manupulated /Karlized to manufacture warming. Historians will look on 1988-2020 as equivalent to the Dutch tulip bulb mania.
And yes, I expect warmunists will be in full retreat by 2020. Renewables are failing; Abengoa in backruptcy, Ivanpah not working technically. Governmental agencies now rebutting alarmist half truths, as here. Public waking up to the costs, as in Denmark this year. More and more obvious nonsense, as the recent UNEP/UNESCO/USC tripe justly ridiculed many places (climate change rabbits will topple Stonehenge). Legal attempts to silence skeptics because they ARE having an impact.
June 4, 2016 5:50 am
Just to tidy up some loose ends …
The full article is not paywalled, you have to take out a subscription. $A4 a week, then goes up to $A8. There is a way round it. I have placed a pdf of the full article as follows:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90071372/GBRbleachingexaggerated.pdf
There are items missing from the edited version above, including the nauseating stuff from Flannery above.
This was also omitted:
“Activist groups last week seized on reports that a UN assessment of the impacts of climate change on iconic Australian World Heritage sites, including the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu and the Tasmanian Wilderness was censored by Australia. It later emerged that the report the government was accused of censoring was complimentary of the Turnbull government’s actions to protect the Great Barrier Reef.”
And:
“The Australian Marine Conservation Society said the leaked information demonstrated the legacy of years of poor farming practices and government inaction, and highlighted the scale of ambition needed for political leaders to protect the reef. The society’s reef campaign director, Imogen Zethoven, said Australia’s
plans to protect the reef’s water quality were “shockingly underfunded”.
[This completely ignores the massive amount of work done by primary industry and Landcare organisations all along the eastern seaboard, much of it locally funded and volunteer action.]
And:
“Meanwhile, tourism operators have stepped up a campaign to fight back against the onslaught of negative publicity. “It seems some marine scientists have decided to use the bleaching event to highlight their personal political beliefs and lobby for increased funding in an election year,” said Association of Marine Park Tour Operators executive director Col McKenzie.”
It is only a short time since the last bout of squawking over coral bleaching; 2012 wasn’t it?
WUWT readers might recall a post that reported the ludicrous suggestion of sticking great wads of shade cloth over the GBR.
June 4, 2016 6:08 am
A right wing blog site like this, quoting “The Australian” (where the extreme right, talk to the only very right wing) is like Stalin quoting Karl Marx for validation.
The Oz, as it is known locally, has been dragged before the press council for various climate related lies before.
[then go read the Guardian and look for this story .mod]
June 4, 2016 6:44 am
The most important anthropogenic contributor to loss of coral in the Great Barrier Reef is agricultural chemical runoff.
The dangers associated with climate change (pH and temperature increases) are real, but an order of magnitude too small to have a significant effect on the reef. Fertilizer runoff is a difficult enough problem to solve. You can imagine how impossible it will be to solve when everyone is pointing at “climate change” as the primary contributor. However, this misdirection is misguided.
June 4, 2016 7:40 am
Please allow a non-scientific observer to make a first time comment:
I have lived my three score and ten and have lived most of these on the tropical Qld coast. My first memories of The Reef were as a boy in a glass bottomed boat. I later swam it as a teenager. It was magnificent. But that was before the first crown of thorns outbreak.
After that outbreak I travelled to Lizard Is on a leisurely trip on a game boat and dived on the Ribbon reefs. I cried in my goggles. There was no hard coral to be seen. It was devastated. There have been three more outbreaks of the COT since. They can’t have been as bad as the first because my last trip it out of Townsville showed it was somewhat improved, but nothing like it was.
Please!!! Take the COT seriously. Revisit Dr Robert Endean for leads if necessary.
June 4, 2016 7:51 am
This is the second time within a week for Australia to be in the news ar WUWT. The first time was in Eric Worrel’s story “Australia accused of manipulating climate data” on May 28th. Climate change came up as it does now so It is worth paraphrasing my response to Eric Worrel about it:
” We were told by Hansen in 1988 that the greenhouse effect has been detected. In his own words, “…global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.” He cited an alleged 100 year warming to support this. But elsewhere he also considered regional observations of warming and concluded that the best you can say about them is that “…In all of these cases, the data is just beginning to emerge.” Hence, we can paraphrase him as: “…If it is warm it must be greenhouse warming, but data to prove this has yet to emerge.” This is not science but IPCC and others insist that Hansen proved the existence of the greenhouse effect. They have spread it around and the greenhouse effect is now uncritically and falsely taken for granted. The following example proves the falsity of this assumption. It is based upon the observed shape of of NOAA’s global warming curve. This curve shows the existence of a thirty year warming period that extends from 1910 to 1940. The extended Keeling curve shows that there was no corresponding increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide during this period that is required if this was greenhouse warming. In addition, this warming is also followed by a severe cold spell that inaugurated World War II. It so happens that it is impossible to reverse greenhouse warming without removing every absorbing carbon dioxide molecule from the air. That is an impossibility. The fact that this thirty year warming was followed by cooling proves that it could not possibly be greenhouse warming. That takes care of a third of a century’s warming. There is no particular reason to think that the rest of the century is any different, hence the twentieth century warming is simply is not anthropogenic global warming as we are drilled to believe. That being the case, the Great Barrier Reef is now simply on its own, likely to do its thing as it always has done without imaginary input from AGW.”
It is worth noting that coral in its native state is exposed to various hazards from El Winos to hurricanes to high tidal movements and has been dealing with them for ages. For a dilettantish professor like Terry Hughes of James Cook University to pick out one phase of up and down changes ln coral and get it advertised as some new and different malady is simply academic irresponsibility.
June 4, 2016 9:44 am
Honestly! Scientists who distort, exaggerate, indulge in emotive panic tantrums and conspire to coordinate mutually beneficial conclusions are the ones California and everyone else should be thinking about holding accountable through prosecution. If you can’t stand the slow and deliberate pace of the scientific method including data transparency, then get out of the lab! These people are causing the integrity of the scientific community to suffer from a massive human induced trustworthiness bleaching event from which it may never recover.
June 4, 2016 10:41 am
Scientists discover magma buildup under New Zealand town
June 4, 2016 by Nick Perry
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800/2016/5752a169f2305.jpg
A drawing looking south along the Taupo Volcanic Zone showing the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the North Island of New Zealand. Uplift of the surface measured by satellite radar and GPS suggests the presence of a magmatic body beneath the Bay of Plenty coast at a depth of 9.5 km. Credit: Ian Hamling
http://phys.org/news/2016-06-scientists-magma-buildup-zealand-town.html
Vukcevic that posting is mean. Having reoriented myself with the unusual direction of the map, noted that the magma upthrust is to the north of Rotorua about half way to the coast I conclude that the upthrust is just about under ME!
However there has not, repeat not, been any unusual seismic activity for for some months, at least since the geothermal field stabilised after the power station went on line, I hope there is no reason the be concerned.
Perhaps the little hill to the east is going to grow a bit in size. It hasn’t done that since the last major earthquake so there may be a bit of excitement in the future.
June 4, 2016 11:07 am
The whole coral scare story is complete insanity.
Corals evolved during the Cambrian and Ordovician with temperatures 10-15C higher than today and CO2 20x higher.
Anyone believing that during the present climate that is almost the coldest in the whole Phanerozoic, that a fraction of a degree C and a few tens (or even hundreds) of ppm CO2 increase is going to have anything but a positive effect on corals is simply insane.
They should spend the rest of their lives in an institution.
If they don’t believe it but are peddling it then they’re a bunch of Bernie Madoffs.
If falsehood had, like truth, but one face only, we should be upon better terms; for we should then take for certain the contrary to what the liar says: but the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms, and a field indefinite, without bound or limit. The Pythagoreans make good to be certain and finite, and evil, infinite and uncertain. There are a thousand ways to miss the white, there is only one to hit it.
Michel de Montaigne, “Of Liars”
http://essays.quotidiana.org/montaigne/liars/
June 4, 2016 1:03 pm
Nothing new in the science or corruption . I recently watched the excellent Reef Reality – Dr Walter Stark : https://youtu.be/ej46dlLxUe8 which I believe was linked here .
But GoogleEarthing , as is my wont , Cape York , I happened to click on this neat image of one of those sinking islands :
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/25570812.jpg
June 4, 2016 6:24 pm
I know, there are some here who must think I’m a very cynical person, but …
“Expert: Scientists exaggerated coral bleaching story”
is a very generic phrase where “coral bleaching” could easily be replaced with:
Arctic Ice
or
rising sea level
or
Polar Bears
or
snowless winters
or
bees
or
…
(sorry, WordPress is giving me an error saying I’m attempting to post a list without an “end of file” marker)
June 4, 2016 6:55 pm
Looking at a somewhat detailed chart of the ocean currents in that region,
the area most affected is distinguished by being bathed in water from a branch of the South Equatorial current that passes through the Coral Sea by way of the channel between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands – a potentially active thermal vent area
I would want to sea the water chemistry all along the Great Barrier reef before I tried to indict marine warming.
June 4, 2016 9:19 pm
“The Australian”, if it has been quoted correctly, has continued it’s extreme bias, it takes very little searching to find that they have only given part of the story. The story is now a complete mess coming from all over the place, but it is advisable to read all the things you can find about it and then you may come to the conclusion that it is pretty difficult to find who said what and to whom. Relying on newspaper reports is pretty unedifying. The hero in the post seems to be Russell Reichelt who says “it is frightening”. That is apparently not believed to be true by most commentators on this blog.
I agree. I also think that WUWT should produce an article on the actual report from the reef authority, and Russell Reichelt’s position on the state of the reef now, and going forward as temperature increases.
Sure, basking in the warm glow of righteous indignation feels good, but isn’t what the report actually says more important? Surely that’s worth an article.
June 4, 2016 10:36 pm
Well Austin says:
TED link: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Coral-Gardening-Frontline-in-th
And here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRLJ8zDm0U
As far as I see, it seems there was an El Nino or something. Maybe it’s unprecedentedness is the cause of the irretrievability of this anthropogenic-rooted disaster. Oh wait, El Ninos are natural. Never mind.
Must be the CO2. Amazing how CO2 can warm one patch of ocean before the rest. It kinda contradicts my understanding that the catastrophic warming would be global with nearly no change in the tropics and a pronounced change in the Arctic and Antarctic. Sure got that wrong.
June 5, 2016 1:06 am
Lots of talk about coral bleaching due to warm sea temps, but I have not seen any sea temp data from the GBR region to see what temp values were responsible, how long the reef was exposed to above normal temps or indeed if sea temps were responsible at all. Are there any daily sst values available?
June 5, 2016 12:46 pm
There are many published papers about the bleaching at Great Barrier Reef, which has happened before 1998. Glynn 1993 is a good example of that:
Mass coral mortalities in contemporary coral reef ecosystems have been reported in all major reef provinces since the 1870s (Stoddart 1969; Johannes 1975; Endean 1976; Pearson 1981; Brown 1987; Coffroth et al. 1990). Why, then, should the coral reef bleaching and mortality events of the 1980s command great concern? Probably, in large part, because the frequency and scale of bleaching disturbances are unprecedented in the scientific literature. For example, no less than 60 major “coral reef bleaching events” (Fig. 1 a) were reported over the 12 year period, 1979-1990 (Coffroth et al. 1990; Williams and BunkleyWilliams 1990; Glynn 1991), compared with 45 “mass coral mortalities” (Fig. 1 b, c) caused by various other disturbances. In contrast, only three bleaching events were reported among 63 mass coral mortality records during the preceding 103 years (1876–1979; Coffroth et al. 1990; see Fig. 1 caption for additional references). ”
However, this is not as simple as it sounds:
“An alternative explanation for the increased frequency of disturbances to coral reefs can be attributed to more observers and a greater interest in reporting in recent years.”
… was anyone interested about bleaching before 1980s? Was there anyone making scientific observations and storing that data? It seems the answer is: No.
The connection between ENSO events and bleaching was already well known at 1993:
“Most of the coral reef bleaching events of the 1980s occurred during years of large-scale ENSO activity (Glynn 1988 a; Jaap 1988). Four bleaching events were reported in the non-ENSO year of 1988: two occurred first in 1987 and continued into 1988 and two were confined to 1988. ENSO conditions known to cause coral bleaching and mortality include (a) sudden sea level drops resulting in reef exposures and reduced circulation, (b) low cloud cover, increased irradiance and warming of shoal reef waters, (c) high rainfall and lowered salinities, (d) largescale sea warming, and (e) calm seas with doldrum-like
conditions. During ENSO events, conditions “a” and “b” often occur in the western Pacific, “c” and “d” in the
central and eastern Pacific, and “e” in the western Atlantic. The strong association of such ENSO-generated stressors with bleaching is indicated in Fig. 1, which depicts ENSO events and their respective durations and intensities. A Fisher exact probability test demonstrated a significant relationship between ENSO years and coral bleaching during 1960-1990 (P=0.012)and 1980-1990 (P=0.030). Before 1979-80, coral reef bleaching was reported only during the 1963-64 and 1972-73 ENSO events even though ENSO events of moderate or stronger intensity occurred every 3.9 years on average from /870- 1990 (Quinn et al. 1987). ”
… so anyone who is trying to argue that bleaching was first observed at 1998 has either studied the science of the bleaching poorly or is lying.
ftp://www0p.isis.unc.edu/pub/marine/brunoj/Bleaching%20papers%20for%20NCEAS%202/Glynn%201993_coral%20bleaching.pdf
June 7, 2016 4:27 pm
Arc Centre of Excellence Coral Reef studies says 35% of GBR killed/dying(impact in North and central GBR) :
https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/coral-death-toll-climbs-on-great-barrier-reef
Possibly La Nina can save the day?
June 8, 2016 3:10 am
Here’s the problem…22% of the reef died from the unusually warm waters, exacerbated by the previous El Nino event…It was worse where the waters were warmer in the northern tropics, not where it was more polluted. But these events are becoming more frequent, and this makes recovery much harder. If the waters become even warmer with the next major El Nino event, the death rate could well be much higher.
This is a biggie. What makes it a biggie is that the Head of the Government-run department is speaking out against intentionally bias claims of climate change induced destruction of the Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef: scientists ‘exaggerated’ coral bleaching
By Graham Lloyd -The Australian
There is growing scientific conflict over bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Picture: Tourism Queensland
Activist scientists and lobby groups have distorted surveys, maps and data to misrepresent the extent and impact of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, according to the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt.
A full survey of the reef released yesterday by the authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science said 75 per cent of the reef would escape unscathed.
Dr Reichelt said the vast bulk of bleaching damage was confined to the far northern section off Cape York, which had the best prospect of recovery due to the lack of onshore development and high water quality.
The report emerged as Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten traded political fire on the reef’s future this week at the halfway point of the election campaign.
As Labor announced $500 million towards protecting the reef, the Opposition Leader said: “We will invest in direct environmental management. We will invest in science and research. We will invest in proper reef management.’’
He said if Australia did not spend the money on the reef, “it is in serious danger of being irreparably damaged. If we do not act, our children will rightly ask us why didn’t we.’’
…
The political debate and the release of the authority’s survey results highlights a growing conflict between the lead Barrier Reef agency and the National Coral Bleaching Taskforce headed by Terry Hughes.
Dr Reichelt said the authority had withdrawn from a joint announcement on coral bleaching with Professor Hughes this week “because we didn’t think it told the whole story”. The taskforce said mass bleaching had killed 35 per cent of corals on the northern and central Great Barrier Reef.
Dr Reichelt said maps accompanying the research had been misleading, exaggerating the impact. “I don’t know whether it was a deliberate sleight of hand or lack of geographic knowledge but it certainly suits the purpose of the people who sent it out,” he said.
“This is a frightening enough story with the facts, you don’t need to dress them up. We don’t want to be seen as saying there is no problem out there but we do want people to understand there is a lot of the reef that is unscathed.”
Dr Reichelt said there had been widespread misinterpretation of how much of the reef had died.
“We’ve seen headlines stating that 93 per cent of the reef is practically dead,” he said.
“We’ve also seen reports that 35 per cent, or even 50 per cent, of the entire reef is now gone.
“However, based on our combined results so far, the overall mortality rate is 22 per cent — and about 85 per cent of that die-off has occurred in the far north between the tip of Cape York and just north of Lizard Island, 250km north of Cairns. Seventy-five per cent of the reef will come out in a few months time as recovered.”
Former climate change commissioner Tim Flannery described diving on the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas recently as “one of the saddest days of my life”
…
Dr Reichelt said Dr Flannery’s language had been “dramatic” and “theatrical” and his prognosis, although of concern, was “speculative”. Dr Reichelt also rejected reports, based on leaked draft documents, that improving water quality would cost $16 billion.
He said the interim report had been rejected by a board of which he was member and “taken totally out of context” in media reports.