WRITTEN BY PETER RIDD ON JUL 23, 2021
The annual data on coral cover for the Great Barrier Reef, produced by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, was released on Monday showing the amount of coral on the reef is at record high levels.
Record high, despite all the doom stories by our reef science and management institutions.
Like all other data on the reef, this shows it is in robust health. For example, coral growth rates have, if anything, increased over the past 100 years, and measurements of farm pesticides reaching the reef show levels so low that they cannot be detected with the most ultra-sensitive equipment.
This data is good news. It could hardly be better. But somehow, our science organizations have convinced the world that the reef is on its last legs. How has this happened?
One reason is that occasionally colossal amounts of coral are killed, mostly by cyclones, but also by the crown of thorns starfish and bleaching.
So the media, with its predilection for bad news, can be fed a regular diet of doom. Our scientists are always happy to oblige.
The quiet recovery is generally downplayed or ignored.
Growing up in Innisfail, adjacent to the reef, in the early 1970s, I recall the initial doom stories about the reef.
The scientific study of the reef had only just started, and plagues of starfish that eat the coral had just been discovered and were making headlines worldwide. The reef had, supposedly, only a decade left.
It was reasonable in the ’70s to be concerned about these plagues and they ultimately precipitated AIMS’ long-term monitoring of coral and starfish in the ’80s.
I was working at AIMS when this important work started, and it is interesting to look back on what has changed.
The coral cover is no less, the number of starfish is no more, but the number of scientists and managers working on the reef has exploded. Perhaps this is the problem.
In 50 years we have now learned a great deal about the cycles of coral death and regrowth. The data reported every year by AIMS shows all areas go through these cycles every decade or two.
Remarkably, even the excellent news of record coral still has the scientists pessimistic. The reef is, apparently, still doomed from climate change and this is just a temporary reprieve. How well does the data need to be to make them admit the reef is fine?
The science institutions have been claiming that there have been three disastrous bleaching events in the past five years, which does not accord with the latest statistics.
Record coral cover means there was no disaster on the reef. The only disaster is the quality assurance at the science organizations.
An examination of the data shows that, while there have been three events, they occurred in largely different regions in each year. The reef has thus effectively had one major bleaching event in the past five years and the previous major event was in 2002.
So the reef has had roughly one event in 15 years, and most of the coral on the reef did not bleach and most that bleached did not die. Therefore, it is not surprising that the reef is in good shape.
The science institutions have been caught out by their own deception. They exaggerated the bleaching events – as usual.
Luckily, we have the AIMS long-term coral monitoring surveys, which are done professionally with good-quality protocols, to demonstrate the state of the reef.
The bad news is that the record high coral cover means it is likely that coral cover will decline in the next few years.
Prepare for the headlines saying the reef has lost much of its coral and is indicative of climate change and farmers polluting the reef. And the reef will be predicted to be gone by 2050 – or whenever.
When will these doom stories about the reef, which have been going for 50 years, cease? Will it be like the Ancient Greek legend of Prometheus, who was chained alive to a rock so that his liver could be eaten by an eagle, only for the liver to grow overnight so that it could be eaten again and again? Will the agony ever end?
But you don’t get it.
If corals decrease, it’s bad.
If they increase that’s bad too.
If they stay the same that’s also bad.
Whatever happens is worse than we thought.
I’m not a marine biologist or a “climate change expert”, but I recognize that everything on earth, especially the earth, is cyclic. Ice ages come and go. Seasons come and go. Even continents move. Man has only been around for the blink of an eye compared to the earth’s 4.5 billion years of existance, and “scientists” want to say what is and what isn’t normal based on their knowledge of what has been observed during that blink of the eye. Wake up, you don’t even know what you don’t know.
Serious Question: Isn’t the “age” of the Earth only a ‘guess’.?
The Great Barrier prophets of doom are claiming that the ocean level rise, due to the CAGW, is upon to kill the corals of the reef that will stop growing and breeding in too deep waters. But, happy surprise, the sea level itself doesn’t look rising so fast as they are claiming according to the irrefutable proofs they got from the satellites records since the many planet’s tide gauges (among them some are almost 2 centuries older than the satellites) stubbornly contradict that the seas are rising at an alarming rate and that they show definitely no acceleration of this rise.
Islands of Truth Emerging from the Murky Depths of “Sea Level Science” – Watts Up With That?
Listen up, deniers…
Why is the Great Barrier Reef in trouble? A simple guide
Why is it at risk?
Global warming has already led to the reef losing half its coral since 1995.
Larger, branching coral types – habitats for a range of sea life – were especially harmed.
Coral polyps – which form the backbone of the reef – are highly sensitive to sea temperatures. They can die if waters get too warm.
And in the past five years alone, the reef has suffered three mass bleaching events.
Climate change also causes ocean acidification and reef erosion.
What needs to be done?
Experts warn the only way to save the reef is by urgently cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The UN says even if the world contains global warming to a 1.5C rise, 90% of the world’s corals will still die.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-57938858
Well, it’s the BBC so we invert the message; the reef is just fine.
Sorry pal. Fossils show coral has been around for hundreds of millions of years and survived all the planetary upheavals that have taken place, including the Permian and Cretaceous extinctions. Plus 2 degrees, even if it happens, will be a piece of cake.
The corals that were around then are extinct now. Many of the ones we have now are, indeed, near to the top of their thermal stress range.
http://globalreefproject.com/coral-reef-history.php
All corals die John.
Then new ones grow on the skeletons.
That’s how coral “reefs” are formed.
Mr. Phillips,
Dr. Peter Ridd has studied the GBR corals for 40+ years. He is an internationally recognized expert. What is your expertise? That you can find some phony data and spout alarmist claptrap? Do you risk losing your job for spouting off on a subject you have no background in? Would you like everyone who disagrees with you to be fired? Would you like to receive the same treatment you wish to inflict on others? Do you think this is some sort of game, where you play with no risk to yourself but others lose everything?
You may feel that your opinions are worthy, but your hammering on demonstrates a great disregard for the reality of the situation.
Additionally Mr. Phillips,
In the interest of full disclosure, please provide your CV, your affiliations, and especially who is paying you to post comments here.
All of this commotion about man made global warming is an effort by the radical liberal leftist around the world to separate us from our money and eradicate our freedom.
The libs believe we are so powerful and can destroy the earth in a handful of decades. We are more powerful than the sun, the storms, the atmosphere. Heck, they even believe humans are more powerful than God.
“It was reasonable in the ’70s to be concerned about these plagues”
No it wasn’t. Corals had survived hundreds of millions of years of changing climate, asteroid strikes, rising and falling sea levels, and no doubt countless lesser catastrophes of which we remain ignorant. And if research was just beginning, that’s reinforces the arrogance of thinking any intervention was required.
What this really shows is the evil of governments confiscating taxes and having such a ready pool of unspent funds just begging dishonest people to find a way to tap into.
http://globalreefproject.com/coral-reef-history.php
Coming next from the MSM: “But this record high level of coral reef growth is a clear sign of climate change and future marine devastation because . . .”
Hmm…So the coral reef is growing so fast it’s mass-density will soon exceed the Schwarzschild limit and implode into a black hole? That sounds like a typical Green’s argument.
Real pollution (i.e. not CO@ur momisugly or H2O) is a threat to coral reefs. Ecosystem disturbances that allow starfish to overhelm an area is a threat. Too many tourists, some of who have to touch the coral or even take home a souvenir is a threat.
Seal levels rising at the current rate are not a threat. CO2 levels are not a threat. More water in the atmosphere is not a threat (the most potent greenhouse gas). Slight warming is not a threat – however cooling could be. Storms while destructive, are not a threat to large reefs survival.
If you want to protect a large reef, designate it a protected area, keep tourists, fishermen, and especially scientists away from it, control any pollutants introduced into the water, and leave it be. The reef will thrive.
There is no reason scientists can’t simple build their own reefs for study. It seems easy to do if a but time consuming – but then they can drill, cut, and take samples without endangering natural reefs.
Had three pipefitters/welders from Australia, they were all divers and spearfishers who grew up in Cairns, tell me about the condition of the GBR in 2004. Never believe anything environistas have to report about GBR. Ever.
Everything warmistas say and believe is based on the notion that all change is bad, and anything humans do must necessarily have catastrophic consequences.
The details are all just made up nonsense by various individuals within their sect.
As I have said for years…the basic raw material of the entire biosphere is CO2, and CO2 is necessary for solar energy to be converted into the power supply of the biosphere.
More CO2 will lead to a more extensive, massive, and robust biosphere.
It is the same in the sea as it is on land.
Of course corals are increasing…there is more availability of the raw material from which they are made than has been the case for a very long time.
It is like if a person who has been starved is given a much larger supply of food.
Coral reefs themselves are constructed of mineralized CO2, and they get most of their food from photosynthetic algae that they live symbiotically with. Their other source of food is stuff floating around in the water, which is part of a food chain that has at it’s base photosynthetic organisms of one sort or an other.
Warmistas have been claiming that CO2 caused disasters of every description have and will continue to wreak havoc with land plants and crops as well, even though there has never been any evidence of this.
They are wrong about everything, almost by definition it seems.
The logical thing to do is assume that everything they say is the exact opposite of the truth and of reality.
When upwelling is strong, as it is now, the reef will be healthy.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Southern-Oscillation-Index-SOI-a-and-upwelling-index-UI-b-monthly-anomalies_fig3_248230647
https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/soi/