From the “global warming and ocean acidification will kill everything, forever” and the “nature always finds a way” department comes this inconvenient truth.
Back From The Dead: Giant Coral Reef That ‘Died’ In 2003 Teeming With Life Again
In 2003, researchers declared Coral Castles dead.
On the floor of a remote island lagoon halfway between Hawaii and Fiji, the giant reef site had been devastated by unusually warm water. Its remains looked like a pile of drab dinner plates tossed into the sea. Research dives in 2009 and 2012 had shown little improvement in the coral colonies.
Then in 2015, a team of marine biologists was stunned and overjoyed to find the giant coral reef once again teeming with life. But the rebound came with a big question: Could the enormous and presumably still fragile coral survive what would be the hottest year on record? This month, the Massachusetts-based research team finished a new exploration of the reefs in the secluded Phoenix Islands, a tiny Pacific archipelago, and were thrilled by what they saw. When they splashed out of an inflatable dinghy to examine Coral Castles closely, they were greeted with a vista of bright greens and purples — unmistakable signs of life. –Karen Weintraub, The New York Times, 15 August 2016
In 1998, a heatwave, which raised ocean temperatures, had caused corals worldwide to go a deathly white – a process called bleaching – and die. The single bleaching event of 1998 killed nearly 16% of the world’s corals. When Dr Peter Mumby had visited Tivaru on the Rangiroa lagoon six months later, he’d found a vast majority of the region’s prolific Porites coral, normally the hardiest of coral species, had followed suit. Based on the known growing rates for the species, Mumby predicted it would take the Porites nearly 100 years to recover, not 15. “Our projections were completely wrong,” he says. “Sometimes it is really nice to be proven wrong as a scientist, and this was a perfect example of that.” –Jane Palmer, BBC, 6 September 2014
“Sometimes it is really nice to be proven wrong as a scientist.”
Yes, unless you’re someone like Michael Mann whose reputation and ego is more important than science. Anyone who refuses to provide their research data to others because they might find something wrong with it doesn’t deserve to be called a scientist.
From the NY Times article:
“Coral can be severely damaged by rising water temperatures, which cause acidification,…”
And all this time I thought they were telling us CO2 caused acidification.
Nice catch. I overlooked that. Does it make any sense at all? Does warmer water temperature somehow reduce pH?
It does appear from this map that there is a slight correlation between latitude and ocean pH:
OTOH, if you descend from the surface of the ocean, for the first several hundred meters, as the temperature falls so does the pH:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VKjZhxJ_ZLw/UFBal_a6TrI/AAAAAAAAAAU/H1xMmlC06Pw/s1600/pH-TCO2.png
Possibly explained by the lower solubility of gases in warmer water?
I suppose it is more a matter of bio-life: algues eat CO2 away and drop out (via fish or directly) of the surface layer as organics and inorganics (carbonate shells for some sorts – coccoliths), which are eaten by bacteria in the depth. That increases the CO2 (/derivatives) content of the deep oceans…
“Our projections were completely wrong”
This should be a plaque, awarded annually by WUWT.
Whoever proofread the above article presumably changed every occurrence of “disappointed” with “thrilled”. They were disappointed (“thrilled”) to find their poster child devastated coral reefs to be teeming with skeptical fishes, oil industry shill corals and denier crabs and lobsters.
These people are ghouls. They feed on fantasies of death. Life to them is like sunlight to a vampire or salt to a slug.
Zombie coral reefs! Braaaaaain…coral.
As Charles Darwin pointed out, coral atols are CAUSED by rising sea levels.
Oh you Chamberlains. It’s WWIII coming to get ya out there and ‘Your UN needs YOU!’
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/08/mckibben-its-the-climate-world-war-hitler-nazis-panic/
Those who forget their history of the Battle of the Coral Sea are doomed to repeat it although where Kaiser Bill fits into the big picture I have no idea.
But those of us who studied and remember history are doomed to be drug through the same muck because everyone else is determined to drag the world through the same $%^#*&$ mistakes!
Kaiser Bill fits in neatly and nicely. His empire included South Sea colonies close to or even on the Coral Sea, if the Solomon Sea be a part thereof.
Good news! Thanks!
/ the paper talks about ‘calcification’. not elaborated /
Most of these clowns know nothing about Corals. Anyone who’s lived and worked with them every day for decades knows the whole thing is complete bunk.
No one in my area of interest, reef building\keeping that I know of, believes OA is even possible, let along the warming doom to corals.
I said it before I’ll say it again, with suddenish changes sps corals that get frequent cool upwelling waters will bleach. If there is change in light spectrum, even UV, they will bleach. If nutrients run a little low, they will bleach, there is about 6 or 7 other causes of bleaching too, that are natural, including infections.
I have yet to meet a marine biologist (who is not a reef hobbyist also) who knows anything credible about Corals and how they actually interact with their environment.
There is no substitute for closely monitoring and caring for corals for years on end in closed systems that require much attention to details, as any negative change becomes apparent rapidly and corals suffer.
“The single bleaching event of 1998 killed nearly 16% of the world’s corals.”……really!?!?
Largest coral on the planet discovered in murky Amazon discharge……Coral discovered in very cold North Atlantic off of coast of GB.
WHAT OF ALL THAT?
What about dinosaurs? Nope! Climate change, and they are serial too!
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/aerosolsoot-in-the-air-caused-by-the-asteroid-led-the-mass-extinction-of-life-66-million-years-ago/news-story/0a75ffbc66cc035a8affdda964b58241
What if corals rely on the periodic El Nino warm waters and bleaching events to rejuvenate? Just as forests rely on fires.
Remember that high energy gas cloud NASA said our system had entered? Remember how strangely the planets were noticed to be significantly more energized ? Remember how the Moon has oddly gained an atmosphere? Remember how Venus’ poles are frigid?
This everywhere energy cannot but fail to do exactly what it has done in distant past cycles—energize/alter/create life on Earth.
What on Earth are you talking about? That’s gibberish.
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
” Based on the known growing rates for the species, Mumby predicted it would take the Porites nearly 100 years to recover, not 15. “Our projections were completely wrong,” he says. “Sometimes it is really nice to be proven wrong as a scientist, and this was a perfect example of that.” “
I am really tired of you people not shutting up and letting your betters run your lives. Lying is necessary for us to implement our totalitarian agenda. You’re just going to have to accept it and keep your mouths shut.
If the climate didn’t change , we’d still live in the last ice age – nothing more to add
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“Our [alarmist] projections were completely wrong,” he says.
“Sometimes it is really nice to be proven wrong as a scientist, and this was a perfect example of that.” –Jane Palmer, BBC, 6 September 2014
What other alarmist predictions, exaggerated claims and catastrophic projections are you fed in order to push the global warming agenda?