More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

[Mr B]

We get melting roads here every year for as long as I can remember. Thats fifty years plus,
The blast furnace is every year,
Riding in 40 + Celcius is common, Riding in torrential rain is common, I do any way, I love riding my bike, the weather is irrelevant,

I will take crappy weather any time compared to earthquakes,

You will have plenty of beds left, Most Kiwi's are in OZ any way,

[Andrew Troup]

It's started already

This afternoon, on NZ National Radio (like NPR)

The host, Jim: "You're an Australian, I can tell"

Caller (Mike): "I saw the light"

Jim: "What brought you over here?"

Mike: "Do YOU want to live in 40 degree heat?"

He moved to one of the coolest parts of NZ.

Good choice.


PS: you can hang onto our kiwis.

A PM of ours (a nasty piece of work) once said (not very originally) that by crossing the Tasman they raised the average IQ on both sides.

PPS: what did the photo of the firestorm prove about coral bleaching? I never did get around to asking...

[Lagoon4us]

The last two weeks for Queensland have been of devastating record floods, we had over a metre of rain in 36 hours, my daughter is isolated in her house in Nagoorin some 40k's away.

Whilst the floods are a record for established townships the actual yearly rain isn't.

Summer rainfall is below average with the remaining/coming month the only chance to reach average, it's just that it all fell in a week.

[David_Old_Jersey]

In the UK the news is all about floods - which given the dire predictions about running out of water up to the year before last I see as an opportunity (I say up the year before last because last summer in the UK it rained. for all of it! - so the Global Climate End of the Worlders rolled back on the drought angle as one of the signs of Armaggedon).

Whilst a bit late to stop folks building on flood plains (the clue is in the name ), to my simple mind sometimes too much water in the winter and sometimes not enough in summer suggests that building a few more reservoirs would be a good idea. and perhaps dropping the population by 10 million.........

....I guess I should add something here about coral .......so, f#ck it It evolves (grows legs? ) or it dies. suck it up little dudes .

[Lagoon4us]

Grasses, trees, coral and man have one thing in common when it comes to climate, they are nomadic moving to where conditions suit.

I was amazed touring the museums of London in the late 80's the amount of evidence of Tropical wild life that once lived in the UK. Must have been that darstardl'y Co2 again or Vo5!!

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Lagoon4us

Grasses, trees, coral and man have one thing in common when it comes to climate, they are nomadic moving to where conditions suit.

I was amazed touring the museums of London in the late 80's the amount of evidence of Tropical wild life that once lived in the UK. Must have been that darstardl'y Co2 again or Vo5!!

And Hai-Karati (sp?)

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by Lagoon4us

Grasses, trees, coral and man have one thing in common when it comes to climate, they are nomadic moving to where conditions suit.

Like most throwaway lines, there are a few things wrong with this. (similarly with DOJ's line that people should just "Suck it up" if coral is under threat) Coral is indeed nomadic. It will move to where conditions suit, if conditions are more suitable elsewhere, and unsuitable where it is. What this overlooks is two things: firstly CO2 dissolved in the ocean makes conditions unsuitable for coral everywhere. I'm not sure where you had in mind: an inland saltwater sea under an astrodome somewhere, perhaps? Artificially seeded with coral? I'm not sure that would be a great consolation for the inhabitants of the part of the globe you see when you turn it so you're looking at 170W, 0N. From this perspective, pretty much all you can see is apparently empty ocean, and yet dozens of nations, colonised in pre-European times by Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians, exist on coral atolls, teeming with life, scatterered all over that ocean. Coral atolls consist ENTIRELY of coral. They are not coral reefs hanging off rock islands, as you might be imagining, and as you get in other tropical regions. I suppose their inhabitants comprise the descendants of the greatest natural seafarers the world has ever produced. I would have thought a forum like this would hold their survival of their culture and way of life in quite high regard. What's expressed here seems to me like complete disdain. Their survival skills when blown offshore when out on a dayfishing trip are legendary even now, but they need SOMEWHERE to live. The second problem is that if coral has to move to a new location, you have to wait a long time for it to reach the surface, from the deep ocean. Deep-water species grow at a maximum of about one inch per year. How long were you imagining Pacific Islanders would be able to dog-paddle? Or were you thinking of putting them up in your spare room meanwhile? Living coral can adapt in situ to rising sealevel, so that islands are not submerged, if the rate of change is slow enough (which at present it is) and the ocean does not acidify further (unfortunately, it also is, and increasingly will). Dead coral does not adapt. The present rate of sealevel change is a tiny fraction of the expected rate once the summer temperatures around Antarctica (and even Greenland) routinely get above freezing. It doesn't melt the ice massively quicker if the temperature warms from -5degC to -3degC: it matters rather a lot if it warms from -1degC to +1 deg C.

[downunder]

Some recent studies of coral drilling cores on GBR or was it the Antartic seem to indicate climate change is a natural occurance and little we mere humans can do about it.

[captainbri]

global warming is one big scam, look at the money trail, look at the global warming conference notice they all fly in private jets. 30 years ago it was global cooling, then it was global warming now it is climate change. it has all been proven false. but to say anything people think you do not care. the truth is it is new science, if global warming makes a university money through grants and donations that is the results you will come up with... i get it save this save that recycle this recycle that it is good. but they are making billions by making up science.

the scientists that do not come up with results that are the popular vote do not last long.

[DeepFrz]

The Yukon Territories hold massive amounts of the remains of Saber Tooth Tigers, Mammoths and other beasts that roamed the area eons ago. The area where I live was once, not long ago in geologic terms, under several mile thick sheets of ice. (seems like it is now). After the ice sheets retreated this whole area was a lake and apparently there was a navigable waterway from the Arctic ocean straight down to the Gulf of Mexico.

However, most of the worlds leading scientists say that the RATE of global climate change is the problem here. The earth is warming at a RATE never before experienced and that we are responsible for that change.

The global climate is in upheaval and we see that by ever increasing local phenomena, such as record temperatures, record rainfall in strong storms, etc. Temps. like +45 c in Saskatoon Saskatchewan for example and weeks of +30 deg temps in other areas that were more used to weeks of -30 c (and colder) temps.

Oh, by the way, that firestorm picture is not an unusual phenomenon. Anyone who has seen a forest fire will be familiar with them. And while I'm on that topic, a few years ago we had such massive forest fires in Northern Manitoba that the smoke stretched across the Arctic Ocean, down the Atlantic all the way to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

Not sure where I was going with this, but whatever...here it is.

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by downunder

Some recent studies of coral drilling cores on GBR or was it the Antartic seem to indicate climate change is a natural occurance and little we mere humans can do about it.

Well hang on, let's think about that a bit.

By that same reasoning, humans in the Middle Ages could have reasonably said (and probably correctly) "There's always been animals leaving their waste byproducts (dung and urine) on the land, in the rivers and in the sea.

Heck, Nothing we can do about it; as mere humans, we'll just do the same."

But it didn't play out that way once cities and industrial farming grew: it's was never going to work out OK if we continued to discharge untreated sewage from farm animals and humans onto the land, into rivers and the sea indefinitely, and it turned out there WAS something we could do about it.

CO2 is like sewage in several ways: it's a waste byproduct from many natural processes, and it serves a useful purpose in the atmosphere provided there's not too much of it.

The thing is this: there's nothing "natural" about drilling for oil and mining coal and burning it.

What we're effectively doing when we do that, is we're releasing into the atmosphere the waste byproducts from hundreds of millions of years of accumulated plant growth (fueled by the sun), in a couple of hundred years.

That's what we're currently busy doing.

As "mere humans".

We're burning a significant fraction of all the plant material that ever grew, in a sense. And all at once.


Pretty clever, us mere humans.
　
　

[Andrew Troup]

My response to the following quote, posted above, got scrambled by the website not playing nicely with either of my browsers, as seems occasionally to happen.

I can't make sense of it above, so here it is as intended.

Originally Posted by Lagoon4us

Grasses, trees, coral and man have one thing in common when it comes to climate, they are nomadic moving to where conditions suit.....

Like most throwaway lines, there are a few things wrong with this.

(similarly with DOJ's line that people should just "Suck it up" if coral is under threat)

Coral is indeed nomadic. It will move to where conditions suit, if conditions are more suitable elsewhere, and unsuitable where it is.

What this overlooks is two things:

Firstly CO2 dissolved in the ocean makes conditions unsuitable for coral everywhere. I'm not sure where you had in mind: an inland saltwater sea under an astrodome somewhere, perhaps? Artificially seeded with coral?

I'm not sure that would be a great consolation for the inhabitants of the part of the globe you see when you turn it so you're looking at 170W, 0N.

From this perspective, pretty much all you can see is apparently empty ocean, and yet dozens of nations, colonised in pre-European times by Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians, exist on coral atolls, teeming with life, scatterered all over that ocean.

Coral atolls consist ENTIRELY of coral.

They are not coral reefs hanging off rock islands, as you might be imagining, and as you get in other tropical regions.

I suppose their inhabitants comprise the descendants of the greatest natural seafarers the world has ever produced.
I would have thought a forum like this would hold their survival of their culture and way of life in quite high regard.
What's expressed here seems to me like complete disdain.

Their survival skills when blown offshore when out on a dayfishing trip are legendary even now, but they need SOMEWHERE to live.


The second problem is that if coral has to move to a new location, you have to wait a long time for it to reach the surface, from the deep ocean.

Deep-water species grow at a maximum of about one inch per year.

How long were you imagining Pacific Islanders would be able to dog-paddle? Or were you thinking of putting them up in your spare room meanwhile?

Living coral can adapt in situ to rising sealevel, so that atolls are not submerged, if the rate of change is slow enough (which at present it is) and the ocean does not acidify further (unfortunately, it also is, and increasingly will).

Dead coral does not adapt.

The present rate of sealevel change is a tiny fraction of the expected rate once the summer temperatures around Antarctica (and even Greenland) routinely get above freezing.

It doesn't melt the ice massively quicker if the temperature warms from -5degC to -3degC:

it matters rather a lot if it warms from -1degC to +1 deg C.

[Mr B]

Andrew,

Have you looked at the Oil Fracturing and Drilling processes in the USA, and its impact on the environment.

Just have a look at it. And dont get hot under the collar about it, This is becoming a big problem world wide as well,

It also pumps out all sorts of chemicals, Much worse than CO2.
It destroys the drinking water for all of us,

[boatman61]

Hi Mr B... when I was out there last year (OZ) there was a stink kicking up about 'Fracking' in some of the territories... are the protesters getting anywhere or is the Gov stalling and bullshitting still...

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Mr B

Andrew,

Have you looked at the Oil Fracturing and Drilling processes in the USA, and its impact on the environment.

Just have a look at it. And dont get hot under the collar about it, This is becoming a big problem world wide as well,

It also pumps out all sorts of chemicals, Much worse than CO2.
It destroys the drinking water for all of us,

I always find it amusing that climate change skeptics, go on about the morals of the scientists. I happen to know a few and in particular one eminent (friends since 6 years old ) one. Their integrity is without question. Scientists fear peer review far far more the money ( if you really know some of these chaps, the last thing they care about is money).

You can babble on all you like, the evidence of mans activity affecting the planet is all is manifestations is growing, you can argue the minute of the weather etc all you like , but we are destroying this planet at an increasing rate ( and there are more of us doing so every year)

One hopes that the planet will reach a tipping point and destroy the virus. Its survival is more important than ours

Dave