Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – the Australian ABC reports scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science are surprised how rapidly the Australian Great Barrier Reef is recovering from the 2016 bleaching event.
Great Barrier Reef starts to recover after severe coral bleaching, survey of sites between Cairns and Townsville shows
By David Chen
Updated Fri at 3:41pm
…
Scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science this month surveyed 14 coral reefs between Cairns and Townsville to see how they fared after being bleached.
The institute’s Neil Cantin said they were surprised to find the coral had already started to reproduce.
“We’re finding corals that are showing early signs of reproductive development, really visible eggs that we can see under the naked eye,” Dr Cantin said.
“[It’s] very surprising as previous studies have shown a two-to-three year delay in reproductive activity following bleaching events.
“It means they have enough energy, they’ve recovered the zooxanthellae and the symbiosis and they even have energy to invest in reproduction and egg development.”
…
This is a very different narrative to last year;
Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching at 95 per cent in northern section, aerial survey reveals
7.30 By Peter McCutcheon
Updated 28 Mar 2016, 9:12pm
An aerial survey of the northern Great Barrier Reef has shown that 95 per cent of the reefs are now severely bleached — far worse than previously thought.
Professor Terry Hughes, a coral reef expert based at James Cook University in Townsville who led the survey team, said the situation is now critical.
“This will change the Great Barrier Reef forever,” Professor Hughes told 7.30.
“We’re seeing huge levels of bleaching in the northern thousand-kilometre stretch of the Great Barrier Reef.”
Of the 520 reefs he surveyed, only four showed no evidence of bleaching.
From Cairns to the Torres Strait, the once colourful ribbons of reef are a ghostly white.
“It’s too early to tell precisely how many of the bleached coral will die, but judging from the extreme level even the most robust corals are snow white, I’d expect to see about half of those corals die in the coming month or so,” Professor Hughes said.
…
“There’s good and bad news — the bottom three quarters of the reef is in strong condition,” he said at the time.
…
“Nonetheless we’re looking at 10-year recovery period, so this is a very severe blow.”
…
Who could have imagined that an organism which survived hundreds of millions of years of mass extinction events, and thrived during the warm Holocene Optimum would demonstrate noteworthy recovery capabilities?
Coral reefs and polar bears… both are tough customers in their own ways.
From the ABC cataclysmic bleaching event article:
“We have coral cores that provide 400 years of annual growth,” explains Dr Neal Cantin from the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
“We don’t see the signatures of bleaching in reduced growth following a bleaching event until the recent 1998/2000 events.”
When did the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ end? 1100 AD? 400 years is a convenient number…although I find it very hard to believe that the first bleaching event to be recorded in 400 years was during the Super El Nino of 97-98. I trust these experts as far as I can throw them…there’s too much money to be made perpetuating their propaganda.
I am going to enjoy the goracles disciples screams and attempted rebuttals of this
Thank fook for that, before legions of well intentioned goody gooders applied a panic stricken and ill-conceived ‘fix’ that would have utterly & completely wasted the thing.
Ma Nature dodged one there alright
Who would’ve thought that a coral reef that has survived hundreds of millions of years wouldn’t be able to survive a couple of years of unusual weather patterns? Well most people with a brain and not an agenda.
The northern Great Barrier Reef has tides. How can coral be exposed to air before it dies?
These coral reef researchers sure seem to get into the news a lot. Funding, bleaching, extinction, rebuilding, new rsearch vessel, funding, recovery, global warming, diving equipment, nice tan, New York Times, $500 to save the coral, $1,000 to accompany researchers on a dive day, live at the beach, Institue of Marine Sciences. Chasing Coral.
If corals cannot tolerate warming, why do reef locations look like this?
http://coraldigest.org/images/4/40/02_06a_lg.jpg
More robust recovery than was expected…. well, good. Gaia can take care of her own, as most of us )mature) persons know quite well. I’m not sure I understand the bleaching mechanism, but if it’s a resting cycle before the next growth spurt, who in the blue-eyed world are we mere mortals to interfere with it?
I am utterly fascinated by this desperate need to “fix” things that can take care of themselves quite well without us.
I would be considerably happier if the do-gooders would take some time out of their busybody lives to get rid of invasive species of plants like buckthorn (a UK import) and purple loosestrife. I’d rather see the native wildflowers like prairie smoke or listaria or marsh marigold when I get out with a camera, but these two are the most prolific pests I’ve ever run into.
But the problem with my wish is that the do-gooders are so ignorant about biology, botany and native species that they’d mow down everything in sight, or root out the wrong things and leave the trash plants.
And yes, I blame them for the problem with domesticated honeybees. Their scramble for “natural” products has done more harm than they can possibly imagine.
But surely the whole of the oceans are already more acidic than a bath of sulphuric acid? Its a wonder any boats can get out there to see the GBR without being eaten alive by the vitriolic seas…
On a serious note I don’t seem too have heard much of the ‘ocean slightly less alkaline, closer to pure natural water pH7’ scare recently…has it gone away? Or has Pres. Trump decide to withdraw from that too?
Can the tourist industry sue the alarmists who claimed the reef would never recover thus scaring away thousands of overseas visitors?
FYI, from the AIMS website:
” The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover in the last 27 years. The loss was due to storm damage (48%), crown of thorns starfish (42%), and bleaching (10%) according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today by researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville and the University of Wollongong.”
This is worse than we thought! These are zombie corals!
LOL
This story resembles environmental activist Philippe Cousteau Jr’s coral revelation in the Southern Red Sea. Worth watching and listening carefully every second from 7 minutes onwards.
Enjoy.
Many religions have a myth involving cyclical death and rebirth, for instance of a god. The Egyptians had Osiris, the Sumerians their Tammuz, the ancient Greeks Adonis and Dionysis, the Norse had Balder, and so pn.
For the cult of the satan gas with the atomic number of the beast, the Great Barrier Reef fulfils the role of the regular death and rebirth myth.
Re: “[It’s] very surprising as previous studies have shown a two-to-three year delay in reproductive activity following bleaching events” Moral: Don’t just believe previous studies.
Um, what caused the bleaching? How much of that cause has changed to now allow recovery? Can’t be the atmospheric CO2 level since it keeps rising, can it?
Researchers are surprised == Please read this non-news that goes against the story line we gave last time.
Scientists are flabbergasted. == Oh, the consensus was just again found to be unbased.
Could not believe their eyes == Yet again an academic institution has replaced open mind with preassumptions.
I do think it important for all of us to cite “global warming” as a natural fact of interglacial periods as to those who would prostitute facts related to AGW (anthropogenic global warming) .
I seem to recall at the time of the alarming press releases that there were no mentions of a possible recovery. The death of the reef was final. It’s recovery is great news. The alarmists can recycle the story in another 15 years or so after the next large El Niño.
This just in – block of ice falls from the sky!!
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-scotland-41403130/huge-ice-block-falls-from-sky-into-family-s-garden
The angry sky god is warning us that more CO2 emissions and he / she will smite us with an ice age!
I have commented a number of times on the speed with which coral recovers from bleaching. If the Australian scientists are surprised by this, then shame on them for not knowing the most basic facts about their chosen field of study. This wilful blindness on their part makes it clear just how much of the koolaid they have drunk …
w.
OT, dont like the look of that sunspot pointing right at us. Time to check the earth strap on my Faraday’s box.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/solar/
This isn’t surprising at all. I’m 71 and I recall at least one maybe two times in the past a serious bleaching occurred and the coral recovered though I don’t recall the time frame for the recovery. It seems that the coral is more resilient than some scare mongering scientists expect. Nature tends not to pay much attention to man kinds expectations.
I have a theory about that bleaching.
At the time, the water currents up there were particularly slow.
That means that the normal wafting of food across the reef would have dropped sharply.
The coral inhabitants all decided to take a holiday and find a better food source.
(I don’t like to think they died of starvation)
Now they are coming back home.