Essay by Eric Worrall
But we might need a few extra tenths of a degree global warming to see the effects.
‘Tipping point’ threshold reached for world’s coral reefs, report suggests
By environment reporter Peter de Kruijff
In short:
The latest Global Tipping Points Report suggests the world’s coral reefs are at risk of mass dieback.
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The first “tipping point” for the Earth has been reached, according to an international report from 160 scientists in 23 countries.
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The world’s warm water coral reefs are the first of 25 vulnerable Earth systems to have reached a tipping point, according to the Global Tipping Points Report.
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Tim Lenton, a University of Exeter professor and climate modeller who led the report, said tipping points could no longer be talked about as a “future risk”.
…Dr Obura stressed we had not yet gone past the upper limit of the tipping point threshold for coral reefs, which is 1.5C.
“Unless the right actions are taken globally, urgently, on climate drivers … the increasing climate pressure means that all reef regions will approach their tipping points, and some may cross them.”
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About 84 per cent of the world’s reefs have bleached in the fourth global bleaching event since January, 2023.
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-10-13/tipping-point-reached-for-coral-reefs-globally-study/105874456
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The tipping points report is available here.
Back in 2023 the Great Barrier Reef experienced record coral cover;
Of course this was still touted as a crisis;
Now there have been a few bleaching events, coral scientists are claiming that unlike previous bleaching events, the coral won’t grow back – though maybe we need the full 1.5C global warming to experience the failure of coral to grow back.
Watch out folks. The asteroid which killed the dinosaurs failed to destroy the coral reefs, as did the 5-8C of rapid warming the Earth experienced during the PETM – but a few tenths of a degree of additional anthropogenic global warming will achieve what the greatest mass extinction event in the last hundred million years failed to accomplish.
We don’t even need to look to the extremes for examples of coral thriving in warm conditions. Most of the Cretaceous, which ended 66 million years ago with the death of the dinosaurs, had far higher CO2 levels than today.
Obviously anthropomorphic warming is more evil than natural climate change because it is man made. Natural climate excursions which failed to kill off the coral just didn’t carry the same punch – even when that punch was delivered by a six mile wide asteroid.
I guess it would be rude to point out that reefs like the Great Barrier Reef span a substantial range of climates, from high tropical heat to subtropical, that the juvenile form of coral is highly mobile, that even over the last 10,000 years reefs relocated significant distances in response to changing sea level and conditions, and that there is thousands of miles of cold water shoreline for juvenile coral spawn to colonise if the equatorial hot end of the Great Barrier Reef ever became too warm.
160 troughers in 23 countries …..
😉
I wonder, how many of those troughers just went along with the study out of fear of being cancelled, fired, never having another paper published or losing grant money?
99 German scientists against Einstein.
FWIW
In British India the term “Shaking the Pagoda Tree” was relieving a rajah of some richness for your general wellbeing.
It seems to me that here we have a “Shaking of the ‘Could/ Might/ Maybe’ Tree” – with similar intent
(It needs a better term than “‘Could/ Might/ Maybe’ Tree ” but that will do for now)
Shaking the money tree will do. That is what the grifters and con merchants have done for centuries. Many of the gen Z fraternity imagine the money tree is real. It is forever producing and they simply need to be under it to collect the bounty. It’s an education thing. They will be telling us next, boys can be girls and girls can be boys in this mixed up muddled up world once defined by Lola, The Kinks were so ahead of their time.
“The main goals of the Paris Agreement are to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.”
Strange there seemed to be a shift 2C to1.5C then back to 2C.
Also the infographic shows current policies go to 3C. Sounds okay but have I got a mental bookmark for 7C or is that a different RCP?
Oh no, on closer inspection, the coral reefs have died off while I was looking at the top. Australia’s gonna be p—– How old is this graphic anyway?
2C or not 2C, that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous catastrophic climate claims;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubled zealots,
And by opposing them, be called a denier.
* * * *
Where did he magic “2°C” come from ??
In the 1970s, William Nordhaus suggested in several papers that if global warming were to exceed 2° C on average, it would push global conditions past any point that any human civilization had experienced.
At that time, Nordhaus obviously knew nothing about climate physics or the history of the human race; he was a young economist at Yale.
“Where did the magic “2°C” come from ??”
I believe it came from the same repository of “science” that six feet of separation will protect from Covid came from.
And those same economists are working at climate institutions like Richard Tol. They are part of Team Green. Anything ‘sciency’ they come in contact with they accept.
Young Nordhaus apparently believes that human civilization started during the Little Ice Age.
Young Nordhaus apparently believes that human civilization started during the Little Ice Age.
Nothing will happen, as usual – beside growing back, as usual 👍 🤗
There is absolutely no way to prove either a warming or a co2 concentration tipping point.
These bullshitters can not locate a tipping point of a beginning of a hurricane with the power of 10000 nuclear bombs even when it is only few hours away.
Throughout hundreds of millions of years there was neither a co2 tipping point even with much higher co2 levels and for hundreds of millions of years the water was way warmer and corals thrived like crazy.
This coral extinction nonsense is a perfect example of the lies and failed predictions which taint everything the climate alarmists say. I have never heard of a single one apologizing after their prediction failed.
Wow, 160 SINOs (Scientists In Name Only) from 23 countries, whose paychecks and careers depended on it being so, agreed that “tipping points” exist, and are out to get us unless! That is impressive. Wonders will never cease.
Trying to get their grant money lined up for COP 30 ! 😉
It’s strange that all of these claimed tipping points failed to happen during the Holocene Climate Optimum.
How many “tipping points” have we already reached?
One more and Guam is going capsize!
By my reckoning this is Tipping Point #437. Ergo and therefore it is high time to revive the Tipping Point Game. You know, every time someone somewhere says “tipping point’ we all drink a beer. It’ll give real meaning to the phrase.
Not familiar with the game, but it sounds like fun! (Within reason. Is the loser the designated driver or just someone off the street?) 😎
“Watch out folks. The asteroid which killed the dinosaurs failed to destroy the coral reefs, as did the 5-8C of rapid warming the Earth experienced during the PETM – but a few tenths of a degree of additional anthropogenic global warming will achieve what the greatest mass extinction event in the last hundred million years failed to accomplish.”
Well said, Eric.
Thanks Jim. The absurdity is strong with this one.
I should have read further in the comments…I posted the exact same quote.
It says “scientists” but have they done any science? Job titles don’t count.
There’s actually a https://global-tipping-points.org/ !
I don’t think the people know the definition of the term .
There’s one major climate ` tipping-point around : 273.15K .
LOL.
OK, that was clever.
Yep-I had to look it up ‘cuz my US background in K and C is quite lacking.
That is what drove all the sea life out of the Arctic during the LIA and late 1970s
Too much 273.15K H2O !
It’s always worser than we thought with the worsest just around the corner if we don’t act now
I know I bang on about this, but isn’t the outcome of the 1950s atomic bomb tests that totally obliterated the Bikini Atoll coral reefs the obvious “Null Hypothesis” to claims that an almost undetectable increase in ambient air temperature (1.5 – 2.0C) will devastate the world’s coral reefs.
The Bikini Atoll reefs totally grew back to their pre-bomb testing size, coverage and health within ~ 60 years, all by themselves.
The temperature at the center of a nuclear explosion can reach tens of millions of degrees Celsius, with initial fireball temperatures exceeding 7,000 degrees Celsius at ground level.
Yeah! Coral reefs are nuclear-explosion proof!
A few tenths of a degree of warming is nothing to coral reefs. Btw, the temperatures have cooled by about 0.5C since early 2024. The “tipping point” keeps getting farther away, not closer.
You can tell it is COP time: Out come the outrageous Climate Alarmist claims right on schedule.
With global temperatures now falling, it’s time to declare victory, and thank Lords Gore, Mann and their accolades for their tireless campaign to make it happen. They can now slide gently in victory to a glorious retirement. We might even start a “march of dimes” for Lord Mann to pay off his million dollar judgement for lying. I’ll even send a dime, making sure it’s in a postage due envelope with no return address.
That true story violates a number of unwritten rules- unless you add some three-eyed sharks and cancerous clams.
I remember snorkeling the reef off Port Townsend in the 90’s. The water was quite cool and I wore a shorty wetsuit to keep comfortable. Beautiful coral and incredible fish swimming by. I saw a giant clam just beneath the surface. It was open and I touched the rim and watched it slowly close. It was a great experience overall.
Water getting too hot for coral to thrive? Only in a computer climate scientists fervored imagination!
even if true, which it probably isn’t, what does that have to do with fossil fuels
What a pile of road apples.
So they survived three “global bleaching event”, but the fourth is a “tipping point”?
The author is obviously ignorant and gullible, and does not realise that water temperatures at one end of the Great Barrier Reef are totally different to those at the other end. Corals exist in water temperatures of about 4 C to about 32 C.
Any of the “. . . 160 scientists in 23 countries.” who believe they are not ignorant and gullible are free to provide evidence to support their belief.
None of them will, of course.
“So they survived three “global bleaching event”, but the fourth is a “tipping point”?”
Good one! That made me laugh! 🙂
But it’s different *this* time, they say.
We are going to get a lot of this crazy talk over the next few weeks as COP30 nears. It’s standard operation procedure for the Climate Alarmists to hype the Climate Crisis talk.
I think the Human-caused Climate Change swindle is about to run its course, despite the best efforts of its proponents.
It’s dead, Jim!
A whole lot of Chicago area building material was mined from a fossilized Devonian (408-360 million years ago) reef just west of the city so I think it’s pretty safe to say that corals are not endangered now.
Considering that most of the last 10,000 years was significantly warmer than now..
.. and coral THRIVED.
I can’t help but think that they are talking out of their ideological butt !!
Eric,
“Obviously anthropomorphic warming …”
The only true ‘tipping point’ that is irreversible was the Great Oxygenation Event, more than 2 billion years ago. The End Permian, Asteroid Extinction, and several other terminal events may have come close to being what could legitimately be called ‘tipping points,’ but Earth recovered from all of them, which is why the term ‘tipping point’ works better as a scary marketing invention than an actual scientific description of the processes at work on Earth.
There are no tipping points.
Add 25% to the cocktail of lies….
There are tipping points… for cows.
If the ice ball Earth events didn’t create a tipping point, nothing will.
But there are people who don’t tip.
Great Barrier Reefs come and go-
Western Australia’s Ancient Great Barrier Reef
It’s COPout kneesup time folks so ramp up the dooming-
Beach erosion: What are the ten best beaches that could no longer exist in a hundred years’ time?
Ignorance of coastal beach morphology is their only excuse.
“ramp up the dooming”
Excellent description of what is going on. All the old memes will be revisited by the Climate Alarmists. To no avail.
Data shows that corals thrive in the warmest waters and grow faster in warmer temperatures.
Data from J.M. Lough, 2008. Chart from J. Greer, “Human CO2 Cannot Cause a Climate Crisis!”, 2023.
These folks are so desperate to find a tipping point or two, the real news would be that they were NOT finding one. Here, the one they found is conveniently invisible, the smell of despair is strong.
The Medieval warm periods is warmer than it is today, as were the Roman, Egyptian and Minoan warm periods. The Holocene optimum was a minimum of 3C warmer than today. In fact better than 90% of the last 12,000 to 15,000 years was warmer than it is today.
My new paper on Australian warming, almost finished, shows the Establishment claim of 1.51 +/-0.3 degrees C since 1910 is wrong. The value easily calculated from raw data from all 46 weather stations existing from before 1910 to 2024 is 1 degree C. The difference is entirely due to adjustment of raw data by subjective means, like assuming that a site with data starting in 1950 can somehow help calculate warming since 1910.
Geoff S