Cruisers Forum
 


Reply
  This discussion is proudly sponsored by:
Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on Cruisers Forums. Advertise Here
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 07-02-2013, 05:07   #106
Marine Service Provider
 
Snore's Avatar

Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: St. Petersburg, FL
Boat: Retired Delivery Capt
Posts: 3,684
Send a message via Skype™ to Snore
Ok let's say the scientists have sold out and the world is corrupt and all the scientific data on global warming is a hoax

Could someone explain why low lying areas along the ICW that have not flooded in 60-70 years are now under water during the perigean (sp?) tides??
__________________
"Whenever...it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea..." Ishmael
Snore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 05:09   #107
Registered User
 
Blue Crab's Avatar

Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Hurricane Highway
Boat: O'Day 28
Posts: 3,920
pirate Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by DumnMad View Post
Not quite powerless. God's first commandment to mankind "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1.) I suppose that means after we fill it its gonna need subduing to fix all the problems that ensue.

The subduing part is why the American God gave us the Second Commandment about keeping government mitts off our guns.
Blue Crab is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 05:13   #108
Registered User
 
Mr B's Avatar

Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Melbourne Australia
Boat: Paper Tiger 14 foot, Gemini 105MC 34 foot Catamaran Hull no 825
Posts: 2,912
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by boatman61 View Post
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...
Thats in Qld, and they are still building this Mega Billion dollar plant, up there,

The one that is the worry is the Kimberlys, Pristine area, and they are trying to put a huge gas plant in the middle of it on the beach,

The Govt does what it wants to, The people just dont count, or matter,

Some protests are actually working, Lake Pedder in Tasmania is being restored from what I have read,

But it does take time,

I believe in progress, but not at the extinction of the envirenment, They both must go hand in hand, and reversal of past mistakes can be achieved,

But greed and big money rules,
Mr B is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 05:21   #109
Senior Cruiser
 
boatman61's Avatar

Community Sponsor
Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: PORTUGAL
Posts: 30,586
Images: 2
pirate Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr B View Post
Thats in Qld, and they are still building this Mega Billion dollar plant, up there,

The one that is the worry is the Kimberlys, Pristine area, and they are trying to put a huge gas plant in the middle of it on the beach,

The Govt does what it wants to, The people just dont count, or matter,

Some protests are actually working, Lake Pedder in Tasmania is being restored from what I have read,

But it does take time,

I believe in progress, but not at the extinction of the envirenment, They both must go hand in hand, and reversal of past mistakes can be achieved,

But greed and big money rules,
Thats 'Her Ladyships' home state is it not... Queenslands doomed..
__________________

It was a dark and stormy night and the captain of the ship said.. "Hey Jim, spin us a yarn." and the yarn began like this.. "It was a dark and stormy night.."
boatman61 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 05:22   #110
cruiser

Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Probably in an anchorage or a boatyard..
Boat: Ebbtide 33' steel cutter
Posts: 5,030
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

zooming out a bit....

conachair is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 06:20   #111
Registered User

Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Fethiye Turkey
Boat: Lagoon 440
Posts: 2,954
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Troup View Post
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.
Sadly you fill your reply with sarcasm, i have lived my life around the very coral you speak of, coral builds on dead coral it's spores float like pollen in he breeze, coral is nomadic.
The greatest threat to coral is man, the propellors stirring nutrient, chemical and silts like never before, haven't spent too much time in the Caribbean but will soon. I would hazard a guess that a great majority of damage is where a great amount of human activity exists.

Co2 soak is not the culprit, as seas rise so to will coral to get the warmth they require.

Climate change is certainly here and with it will bring rising seas however one displaced gas is not the culprit, many warmings have occurred before and none can be put down to a simple factor as Co2 mis-placed.

Throw-away lines?????? I made a point and that point stands.

Look elsewhere for your arguer.

Cheers
__________________
"Political correctness is a creeping sickness that knows no boundaries"
Lagoon4us is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 07:30   #112
Registered User
 
Tar34's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 302
Re: More bad news for Caribbean coral reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by avb3 View Post
So you are in denial of climate change because you think there may be government action? Or are you in denial period... denying the science? So far, your mixing the two.
Climate Change or Anthropomorphic Warming? The NG article doesn't say. You say science is science and not judgmental but I caution you that science can be manipulated and the controversy of AGW is a prime example. The NG article
says explicitly in a header: "Global Warming Also at Play". Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Programme, under the header says, “For those that are very skeptical of what’s happening with climate change, I would say reality is not in their favor.”

He does does not specify anthropomorphic caused climate change just simply climate change. You seem to make the assessment he meant Anthropomorphic induced warming ergo, government action need not be questioned. You also use the coded word "denial" to infer the poster was ignoring the science. Again I caution you to be fair and admit AGW is not settled science and has fallen prey to special interest manipulation. In recent months, the UN IPCC and the the East Anglia Climate Research Unit have backtracked on many of it's more extreme positions in the past. I urge you to keep an open mind and not fall prey to those who might not have your best interests in mind. I have linked to a recent critique of climate science and methodology. This might temper some of the calls for "Government Action" and turn a more critical eye on institutions and their motivation for calling for such intervention.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15289336/Glo...7C%20AITSE.pdf
Tar34 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 08:11   #113
Registered User
 
Teknav's Avatar

Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Texas - USA
Boat: Twin Otter de Havilland Floatplane
Posts: 1,838
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

I'll make it simple to understand...if the water hue is turquoise/aqua...most likely the corals are dead or in a comatose state; 10-30 ft depth. If the water color looks deep navy blue, the health of the corals is good; 30-70 ft. If the color is almost black/very dark navy, the corals are in a great shape; 70+ ft. Make no mistake about it, the warmer the water the faster corals' death. If the location has a high current (grater than 2 knts), the corals will be healthy as well. <2500+ dives, in 40+ countries> Mauritz
Teknav is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 09:22   #114
Long Range Cruiser
 
MarkJ's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Australian living on "Sea Life" currently in England.
Boat: Beneteau 393 "Sea Life"
Posts: 12,822
Images: 25
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by boatman61 View Post
Queenslands doomed..
Its a big state and not too many people... prolly can frack on for ages.

Its weird that the greenie movement has pounced on a word they really know nothing about... and only very recently too. I would love to see the time line of some environmentalist discovering the word to now... 12 months?

Whats Fraccing? or Fracking? "Dunno! But its bad! Bad BAD!!!"
But gobsmackingly fracked is that people think fracking (or fraccing) can effect the greenhouse/global warming/etc thingy. How, pay tell?
You could fracc the whole of Queensland from zero to 5,000 meters deep and still not produce the greenhouse gasses of cattle bums in their normal flatulance.
As for ground water infiltration.... ummmm well the Great Artesian Basin takes 20,000 years to cycle. I dont mind thinking of my grandkids, but 20k years time? (Actually the South Australians only get the water from Queensland after a few million years).


Frack on, I say! Or at least find out what it means before walking down the main street with a fracking banner.


Mark
__________________
Notes on a Circumnavigation.
OurLifeAtSea.com

Somalia Pirates and our Convoy
MarkJ is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 13:15   #115
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 2,441
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr B View Post
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
Yes, thank you, I was aware of it. It's been happening here in NZ for a while, and is quite controversial.

Some people are jumpy about the supposed potential for earthquakes - I suppose there might something in that, but it also might be a bit of a red herring: if it's proven not to be a problem for that reason, it doesn't stop it being a major worry for other reasons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr B View Post
It also pumps out all sorts of chemicals, Much worse than CO2.
It destroys the drinking water for all of us,
I'm glad you said that. Not just because water is a grave concern, but I think you've highlighted a misconception about the problem with CO2.

It's not that CO2 is a dangerous chemical or a pollutant.

The problem is that too much of it in the atmosphere restricts the escape of solar energy reflecting back out into space. It's called the "Greenhouse effect" for a good reason.

The glass in a greenhouse is not a dangerous substance. It has a beneficial purpose in the right context, in restricting the escape of solar energy, thereby helping tomatoes to thrive.

CO2 is not a dangerous substance.
But too much of it can have dangerous consequences.

Sure, there are parts of the world which would benefit from being hotter.

However a huge portion of the world suffers from already being too hot.

Diseases, crop failures, droughts and lethargy are major reasons why hot countries tend to be poor countries.
Andrew Troup is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 13:33   #116
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 2,441
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lagoon4us View Post
...
Co2 soak is not the culprit, as seas rise so to will coral to get the warmth they require.

... many warmings have occurred before and none can be put down to a simple factor as Co2 mis-placed.

.... I made a point and that point stands.

.....
You made an assertion, based on a misapprehension.

The assertion was that coral, being nomadic, can simply move in response to rising levels of CO2; the misapprehension was that the only problem extra CO2 might introduce is warming.

My point is that extra CO2 introduces an entirely different extra problem for coral: by dissolving in the ocean, it makes the ocean less alkaline and more acidic, which in turn dissolves the coral.

Try dropping some small fragments of coral or limestone in a bottle of carbonated water. It's very simple chemistry.

Calcium carbonate is dissolved by carbonic acid.


Coral cannot migrate away from a problem when that problem is everywhere.

It's a double whammy, because the rate at which CO2 dissolves in water increases with temperature.
Andrew Troup is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 13:43   #117
Registered User
 
Tar34's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 302
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Troup View Post
You made an assertion, based on a misapprehension.

The assertion was that coral, being nomadic, can simply move in response to rising levels of CO2; the misapprehension was that the only problem extra CO2 might introduce is warming.

My point is that extra CO2 introduces an entirely different extra problem for coral: by dissolving in the ocean, it makes the ocean less alkaline and more acidic, which in turn dissolves the coral.

Try dropping some small fragments of coral or limestone in a bottle of carbonated water. It's very simple chemistry.

Calcium carbonate is dissolved by carbonic acid.


Coral cannot migrate away from a problem when that problem is everywhere.

It's a double whammy, because the rate at which CO2 dissolves in water increases with temperature.
If global temperature is controlled primarily by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, then changes in carbon dioxide should precede parallel changes in temperature.
In fact, the opposite relationship applies at all time scales. Temperature change precedes carbon dioxide change by about 5 months during the annual seasonal cycle, and by about 700-1000 years during ice age climatic cycling.

Increases in acidity my affect corals but the increase in CO2 levels do not precede warming but the exact opposite.
Tar34 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 13:47   #118
Registered User
 
ReMetau's Avatar

Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Marathon, FL
Boat: Hans Christian 33
Posts: 652
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Most people aren't willing to change their lifestyles until something drastic occurs. As the population continues to explode and more countries take on the "civilized" culture, we are going to be on one wild freakin ride.

"I tell you this, I'm gonna get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames." - The Doors
__________________
Don & Diana
s/v ReMetau - a Hans Christian 33
https://www.remetau.com
ReMetau is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 13:50   #119
Registered User
 
Therapy's Avatar

Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: W Florida
Boat: Still have the 33yo Jon boat. But now a CATAMARAN. Nice little 18' Bay Cat.
Posts: 7,086
Images: 4
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

3.1. Is it Caused by Global Warming?
In an impressive analysis of one of the major environmental questions of our day, Hoegh-Guldberg (1999) concludes that “coral bleaching is due to warmer than normal temperatures” and that “increased sea temperature is the primary reason for why coral bleaching has occurred with increasing intensity and frequency over the past two decades.” As outlined in the preceding sections, there is indeed a significant body of evidence that points towards these conclusions; but there is much other evidence that points to alternative possibilities.
Consider, for example, the persistence of coral reefs through geologic time, which provides substantive evidence that these ecological entities can successfully adapt to a dramatically changing global environment (Veron, 1995). What can their history tell us about bleaching and global warming in our day?
The earliest coral reefs date to the Palaeozoic Era, over 450 million years ago (Hill, 1956); while the scleractinian corals, which are the major builders of the reefs of today (Achituv and Dubinsky, 1990), appeared in the mid-Triassic some 240 million years later (Hill, 1956), when the earth was considerably warmer than it is currently (Chadwick-Furman, 1996). Although reef-building ceased for a time following the extinctions at the end of the Triassic, the Scleractinia came back with a vengeance during the Jurassic (Newell, 1971; Veron, 1995); and they continued to exhibit great robustness throughout the Cretaceous, even when temperatures were as much as 8-15°C (Chadwick-Furman, 1996; Veizer et al., 1999), and atmospheric CO2 concentrations 2 to 7 times (Berner and Kothavala, 2001), higher than present.
At the end of the Cretaceous, 70% of the genera and one-third of the families of scleractinian corals disappeared (Veron, 1995) in the greatest biospheric extinction event in geological history, which may possibly have been caused by a large asteroid impact (Alvarez et al., 1980, 1984). They developed again, however, throughout the Cenozoic, particularly the Oligocene and Miocene (Chadwick-Furman, 1996). Finally, throughout the past two million years of the Pleistocene, they survived at least seventeen glacial-interglacial cycles of dramatic climate change and sea level fluctuation, successfully adapting, over and over again, to these enormous environmental challenges (Pandolfi, 1999). In the words of Benzie (1999), this evidence suggests that “coral reef communities are relatively resilient, have survived previous global climate change, and appear likely to survive future changes.” And this conclusion leads us to wonder why corals should be succumbing to global warming now.
To answer such an inquiry we must first address the question of what is “normal” for coral reefs in our day? Is it what they look like now? Or what they looked like thirty years ago? Or 300 years ago? Or whenever? Kinzie (1999) has emphatically stated that “it is clear that the definition of a healthy reef as ‘what it looked like when I started diving’ is fraught not only with hubris but strong temporal bias.” Indeed, as Greenstein et al. (1998a) have observed, “it must be demonstrated that the classic reef coral zonation pattern described in the early days of coral reef ecology, and upon which ‘healthy’ versus ‘unhealthy’ reefs are determined, are themselves representative of reefs that existed prior to any human influence.” Only when this criterion is met will we have, in the words of Greenstein et al. (1998b), a good replacement for “the temporally myopic view afforded by monitoring studies that rarely span a scientific career.” Clearly, therefore, there should be no argument over the key fact that we need a proper understanding of the past to correctly judge the present if we ever are to foretell the future.
In an attempt to obtain a true picture of pristine coral conditions in the western North Atlantic and Caribbean, Greenstein et al. (1998a, 1998b) conducted systematic censuses of “life assemblages” and “death assemblages” of corals on healthy modern patch reefs and compared the results with similar censuses they conducted on “fossil assemblages” preserved in Pleistocene limestones in close proximity to the modern reefs. What they found was most interesting. The data revealed a recent decline in thickets of Acropora cervicornis, as evidenced by their abundance in the death assemblage, and a concurrent increase in Porites porites, as evidenced by their abundance in the life assemblage. In comparing these results with those obtained from the fossil assemblage, they found that the present Caribbean-wide decline of A. cervicornis is “without historical precedent” and that it is a dramatic departure from “the long-term persistence of this taxon during Pleistocene and Holocene Optimum time,” when “intensifying cycles in climate and sea level” recurred again and again throughout a roughly one-million-year time period.
These observations, along with the similar findings of Jackson (1992) and Aronson and Precht (1997), suggest that if little change in coral community structure occurred throughout the Pleistocene – when it was often warmer than it is now (Petit et al., 1999) – the recent die-off of A. cervicornis cannot be due to global warming alone, or even primarily; for this particular coral has clearly weathered several major episodes of global warming and elevated water temperatures in the past with no adverse consequences. Neither can the coral’s die-off be due to the CO2-induced decrease in seawater calcium carbonate saturation state that might possibly be occurring at the present time (see the section following on Coral Calcification); for the air’s CO2 content has not risen sufficiently to have caused this parameter to decline enough to significantly impact reef coral calcification rates (Gattuso et al., 1998, 1999), as is also demonstrated by the opportunistic replacement of A. cervicornis by P. porites. In addition, in their detailed reconstruction of the history of calcification rates in massive Porites colonies from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Lough and Barnes (1997) report that the mid-twentieth century had the second highest coral growth rate of the past 237 years. Hence, although A. cervicornis has indeed suffered an extreme decrease in abundance throughout the Caribbean in recent years (Hughes, 1994), its precipitous decline cannot be attributed to either global warming or the direct effects of rising CO2.
In light of these data-driven considerations, Greenstein et al. (1998a, 1998b) have attributed the increasing coral bleaching of the past two decades to a host of local anthropogenic impacts; and this conclusion is accepted in a much wider context as well, as Buddemeier and Smith (1999) have noted that “reviews of the problems facing coral reefs have consistently emphasized [our italics] that local and regional anthropogenic impacts are a far greater immediate threat to coral reefs than Greenhouse-enhanced climate change.” It is possible, however, that yet another natural phenomenon may be playing an important role on the global stage as well.
3.2. An Alternative Hypothesis
The preceding considerations clearly indicate that global warming cannot be the primary cause of the massive coral bleaching the earth has experienced in recent years. However, many climate alarmists tenaciously cling to this hypothesis because of the fact that (1) no significant massive and widespread coral bleaching was reported in the 1970s and (2) the global warming hypothesis can account for this observation. Specifically, Hoegh-Guldberg (1999) has suggested that the reason “why mass bleaching events are not seen prior to 1980” is that “increases in sea temperatures have only become critical since in the 1980s, when El Niño disturbances began to exceed the thermal tolerances of corals and their zooxanthellae” as a result of global warming increasing the background temperature to which El Niño thermal effects are added.
This reasoning assumes that no other theory is capable of accounting for the fact that modern mass bleaching events did not begin to occur until 1980; and on the basis of this assumption, Hoegh-Guldberg (1999) concludes that the global warming hypothesis must be correct, even in light of the many problems associated with it. This assumption, however, is not true; for there are other ways of satisfying this critical criterion that do account for the lack of bleaching episodes before 1980, which we describe below.
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a phenomenon that is responsible for multiannual to decadal variability in Northern Hemispheric climate that is numerically represented by the pressure difference between the Azores high and the Icelandic low (Dugam et al., 1997). It has been documented over the past 350 years in Greenland ice core reconstructions (Appenzeller et al., 1998) and explicitly quantified from 1864 through 1994 via actual pressure records (Hurrell, 1995), which have been updated through 1998 by Uppenbrink (1999).
Plots of these NAO data sets reveal a shift from strong negative index values in the 1950s and 60s to what Hurrell (1995) describes as “unprecedented strongly positive NAO index values since 1980.” This observation is especially important, for during times of high NAO index values, there is a significant reduction in atmospheric moisture transport across southern Europe, the Mediterranean, and north Africa (Hurrell, 1995); and Richardson et al. (1999) note that this phenomenon has led to the development of prolonged drought in the Sahel region of Africa since the NAO shift to positive index values in 1980.
One consequence of this drought has been a gradual increase in the dust content of the atmosphere, which in some areas has grown to five-fold what was deemed normal prior to this climatic transition (Richardson et al., 1999). Of particular significance to corals is the fact that this airborne dust carries bacteria, viruses and fungi that can kill them; and Pearce (1999) notes that outbreaks of a number of coral diseases “have coincided with years when the dust load in the atmosphere was highest.” In 1983, for example – when the NAO index reached its highest value since 1864 (Hurrell, 1995) and the atmosphere was exceptionally dusty – a soil fungus of the Aspergillus genus appeared in the Caribbean, initiating an onslaught of soft coral sea fans that has now destroyed over 90% of them; and Pearce (1999) notes that there are solid scientific reasons for concluding that “the speed and pattern of the fungus’s spread indicates that it could only have arrived on the trade winds from Africa.”
In addition to carrying its deadly biological cargo, the positive-NAO-induced airborne dust is rich in iron, which extra supply, in the words of R.T. Barber as quoted by Pearce (1999), "may have spurred the worldwide growth of a variety of invader organisms harmful to coral ecosystems.” What is more, such iron-rich dust has the capacity to fertilize algae that compete with zooxanthellae for other scarce nutrients and reef living space. Abram et al. (2003), for example, reported that a massive coral bleaching event that killed close to 100% of the coral and fish in the reef ecosystem of the Mentawai Islands (located southwest of Sumatra, Indonesia, in the equatorial eastern Indian Ocean) in 1997-1998 was brought about by an anomalous influx of iron provided by atmospheric fallout from the 1997 Indonesian wildfires, which they describe as being “the worst wildfires in the recorded history of southeast Asia.” The enhanced burden of iron, in turn, spawned a large phytoplankton bloom that likely caused the coral and fish death via asphyxiation. In concluding their paper, Abram et al. warn that “widespread tropical wildfire is a recent phenomenon, the magnitude and frequency of which are increasing as population rises and terrestrial biomass continues to be disrupted,” and by further stating that “reefs are likely to become increasingly susceptible to large algal blooms triggered by episodic nutrient enrichment from wildfires,” which phenomenon, in their words, “may pose a new threat to coastal marine ecosystems that could escalate into the 21st century.”
The time-line for the appearance and progression of these several related phenomena matches perfectly with the timeline of the historical buildup of modern coral reef bleaching throughout the 1980s and 90s. This is not to say, however, that these aggregate phenomena comprise the answer to the problem to the exclusion of all other possible causes, even including global warming. We only suggest that they too must be seriously considered in attempts to identify the true cause or causes of this most distressing development in coral reef history.
Thus, although one can make a rational case for coral bleaching being caused by global warming, there are too many pieces of evidence that contradict this hypothesis for it to be deemed the sole, or even primary, cause of this modern curse of reefs. Furthermore, there is at least one alternative explanation – and possibly others yet to be described – for the observed historical development of massive coral bleaching episodes that are not contradicted by ancillary considerations.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	HistoricCO2andTemp.gif
Views:	128
Size:	12.8 KB
ID:	54178  
__________________
Who knows what is next.
Therapy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 14:10   #120
Registered User
 
Teknav's Avatar

Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Texas - USA
Boat: Twin Otter de Havilland Floatplane
Posts: 1,838
Re: More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

Why do you think Maine's lobsters are losing their coats (hard shell to softer shell)? The ocean is too hot, and they don't like to be red hot too many times! Mauritz
Teknav is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
Caribbean, coral, reefs, caribbean

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Advertise Here


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 08:02.


Google+
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Social Knowledge Networks
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.

ShowCase vBulletin Plugins by Drive Thru Online, Inc.