Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova; A field expedition to investigate remote islands on the Great Barrier Reef has discovered the islands are growing.
Magic mangroves a ‘blue carbon’ buffer for Great Barrier Reef
By Liam Phelan
January 8, 2022 — 9.00am
A scientific field trip to a small group of deserted islands on the Great Barrier Reef has its roots in a 1928 expedition and has implications for the future of the reef.
A team of researchers from the University of Wollongong led by Associate Professor Sarah Hamylton visited the Howick islands, about 130 kilometres north-east of Cooktown, in far northern Queensland, last year and found the mangroves were expanding.
“What’s particularly interesting for a lot of the islands in the Howick group that we are mapping and investigating is that they are growing,” Associate Professor Hamylton says.
“Most of the islands we have looked at are predominantly made up of broken up corals, which waves then sweep and deposit on the island. This coral sediment is responsible for building up the islands. Add in mangrove forests and you can see that these islands are actually growing. Some mangrove forests are marching forwards by up to five to six metres per year,” she explains.
Associate Professor Hamylton says the group was able to compare aerial images taken by a drone with hand-drawn maps created in 1928 and photographs from 1974.
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A PhD student in philosophy Oxana Repina says the research is now more important than ever.
“The fate of the Great Barrier Reef depends on how quickly we address human-made pressures like climate change and try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This place is among the most diverse and iconic ecosystems on Earth. Sure, the media headlines have portrayed the reef as dying or dead, but that’s an oversimplification, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Let’s not write the reef off just yet.”
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Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/national/magic-mangroves-a-blue-carbon-buffer-for-great-barrier-reef-20220105-p59m0t.html
The scientists stopped short of offering an explanation for the sustained Mangrove growth spurt, an explanation for why the Mangroves which were studied appear to be advancing so vigorously, but there is an obvious possible explanation.
Mangroves are the weeds of the ocean, they’ll grow anywhere and everywhere!
And just 20 000 years ago with sea level 120 m lower the Great Barrier Reef could even not have existed on that same spot. Now let’s see. In a linear trend that would be 20 000y 120m = 200y 1,2m = 100y 0,6m. That is double of what they claim is happening today.
More CO2, more plants. It ain’t rocket surgery, chi’drens.
Here are the mangroves of North Caicos, doing what mangroves always do, trapping sediment and growing out into the shallow waters of the lagoon.
Of additional interest is that mangroves growing in the sheltered lagoon fringes of coral islands accually create calcareous mud sediment because the surface of their roots below water provides a holdfast for calcareous algae that create and mechanically shed micrite crystals.
Blah blajh blha, nothing bad happening, islands fine. etc, then
Standard disclaimer, climate change is dangerous and we mush do something.
Pathetic, isnt it.
So global warming “Climate change” creates mangrove islands on ‘disappearing’ reefs .
It is a miracle molecule indeed .
If you don’t mine the hell out of coral the islands will grow –
“Paper 5: Status of Coral Mining in the Maldives: Impacts and Management Options – By Abdulla Naseer, Marine Research Section, Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture Malé, Republic of Maldives”
https://www.fao.org/3/x5623e/x5623e0o.htm