The Reef Ain't Dead

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by jackdale

You are a cynic by that definition as well.

In the context, definitely. Although I do have the privilege of being at ground zero in a red zone, so maybe there's that, too.

[RaymondR]

And nicely timed for the upcoming climate boondoggle is an article in today's The Australian headlined Downgrade Sees Barrier Reef Listed as Critical which states that the reef has been downgraded to "critical" following a three year review by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (sounds like a usual suspect and guess what) which has concluded that climate change has replaced invasive species as the biggest threats to world heritage sites around the world.

The article proceeds to state that "The reclassification will likely lead to a renewed push for the reef to be listed as "in danger", the first step in having a World Heritage designation revoked. That rating would be a huge blow for the reefs tourism industry."

One wonders if this is part of the "net zero by 2030" agenda being run by the left in Australia prior to the upcoming climate change boondoggle.

Would anyone like to bet me a new genset that the science used for the reclassification was the science classified by Ridd as junky?

[Reefmagnet]

Some of you guys might be interested in this.



https://iview.abc.net.au/show/reef-live

New series premieres Friday 4. In a live event from the Great Barrier Reef, witness one of the world's greatest natural spectacles - the annual phenomenon of the majestic mass coral spawn.

[AKA-None]

So do we wait for a definitive result or should people have some concern that something might not be right?

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So do we wait for a definitive result or should people have some concern that something might not be right?

About the only practicable you could do is to respond generously if some small tourist trade business which has been damaged by the sensationalism seeks crowd funding for a case against the zealot culprits. If you want to make a gesture stop using sugar in your coffee, most of the agriculture is sugar cane farming.

Pretty well all the reef is already a marine park and by world standards is well managed and it has all been zoned for acceptable activities and as a national icon any disallowed activities observed by the public are fairly rapidly reported to the authorities and penalties are fairly severe.

Australia has already over performed on it's CO2 reduction commitments and solar and wind uptake and subsidies have doubled the price of electrical power in the last seven years and the formerly stable network now operates on the edge of disaster during the summer months.

I would not be too concerned yet, as we say in Australia "She'll be right mate."

[BigBeakie]

Yeah, right. You would be “not too concerned yet”, eh? That figures.

With the 3rd bleaching event on the GBR within 5 years, you reckon nuthin to be concerned about, eh? I guess you figure it’s just a wild statistical anomaly, right?

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

Yeah, right. You would be “not too concerned yet”, eh? That figures.

With the 3rd bleaching event on the GBR within 5 years, you reckon nuthin to be concerned about, eh? I guess you figure it’s just a wild statistical anomaly, right?

Well it could be a wild statistical anomaly, the reefs about half a zillion years old and we don't have any good records going back more than a few decades and they appear to have abandoned objective methodologies.

This is not just a problem with Barrier Reef studies. A recent enquiry by the South Australian corruption commission found that 40% of tertiary education academic staff believed that their universities suffered the problems Ridd complained of.

[BigBeakie]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Well it could be a wild statistical anomaly, the reefs about half a zillion years old and we don't have any good records going back more than a few decades and they appear to have abandoned objective methodologies.

This is not just a problem with Barrier Reef studies. A recent enquiry by the South Australian corruption commission found that 40% of tertiary education academic staff believed that their universities suffered the problems Ridd complained of.

Ok so the GBR is really, really old and the first widespread mass bleaching events are noted in that looooong time span for the first time in the 1980's, and of that the events are somewhat spread out with years between events, but they are getting:
more intense,
are involving more reefs around the world,
are increasing in frequency to the point where now we have 3 events within a 5 year period.....

...and yet you think it might still be just a statistical blip? Clearly you don't have much of a grasp on statistical analysis. And we do have good data on bleaching historical events from core sampling on old corals ie, dendrochronology studies.

Did you know that Diploria species corals, the "brain" corals, are very slow growing? Did you know that large specimens can be many hundreds to a couple of thousand years old? So they've managed to survive all this time, through other less frequent and less intense warming events, and yet now they are dead and covered with algae.

And some of them are dead, down at depths that warm surface level water should, not normally, affect.

RaymondR, just curious, how would you explain that?

[RaymondR]

Dunno but.

The reef is formed from a great mass of dead coral with a very thin venere of living coral on the outer edges. What mechanism built that great mass, some form of instant genesis or a slow accumulation by natural life/death cycles which may have included previous warm water bleaching kills?

In an ice age/warm age cycle if 40,000-50,000 years a few hundred is a mere eye blink.

I cruise north and south up and down about 800 nautical miles inside the reef every year. Many of the islands I anchor at have a tear drop shape with the NW side, which is the pointy side opposite the prevailing SE winds. Underlying all the level shelves is old reef about fifteen feet above the present high tide line. Obviously these shelves indicate the level of the tops of the reefs during a previous warm period when sea level persisted more than 15 feet higher than at present.

Now I'm just a dumb old oilfield roughneck but I tend to assume from my observations of this phenomenon that the AGM/CC zealots just might have stumbled upon a couple of climate facts: The climate does change. And, when it gets warm and the ice melts the sea level does rise. And, when the climate gets cold and freezing occurs the sea level goes back down. From these musings I tend to the opinion that this climate business must have a cyclic component.

Now I'm also a curious dumb old roughneck and would like someone to explain to me who it was that burned all the coal and caused all those previous climate change and up/down sea level change cycles when mankind was still living in the trees?

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Dunno but.
The reef is formed from a great mass of dead coral with a very thin venere of living coral on the outer edges. What mechanism built that great mass, some form of instant genesis or a slow accumulation by natural life/death cycles which may have included previous warm water bleaching kills?

In an ice age/warm age cycle if [is] 40,000-50,000 years a few hundred is a mere eye blink.

Now I'm just a dumb old oilfield roughneck but I tend to assume from my observations of this phenomenon that the AGM/CC zealots just might have stumbled upon a couple of climate facts: The climate does change. And, when it gets warm and the ice melts the sea level does rise. And, when the climate gets cold and freezing occurs the sea level goes back down. From these musings I tend to the opinion that this climate business must have a cyclic component...

I think you’ve identified one major cause for concern.
The natural climactic changes, that normally takes tens of thousands of years, is now occurring in mere centuries (in fact accelerating in recent decades) and we know why/how.

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

Ok so the GBR is really, really old and the first widespread mass bleaching events are noted in that looooong time span for the first time in the 1980's, and of that the events are somewhat spread out with years between events, but they are getting:
more intense,
are involving more reefs around the world,
are increasing in frequency to the point where now we have 3 events within a 5 year period.....

...and yet you think it might still be just a statistical blip? Clearly you don't have much of a grasp on statistical analysis. And we do have good data on bleaching historical events from core sampling on old corals ie, dendrochronology studies.

Did you know that Diploria species corals, the "brain" corals, are very slow growing? Did you know that large specimens can be many hundreds to a couple of thousand years old? So they've managed to survive all this time, through other less frequent and less intense warming events, and yet now they are dead and covered with algae.

And some of them are dead, down at depths that warm surface level water should, not normally, affect.

RaymondR, just curious, how would you explain that?

Well that's certainly an interesting perspective. How does what you're suggesting correlate with this?....

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Well that's certainly an interesting perspective. How does what you're suggesting correlate with this?....

Perhaps you could show us whence your graphs came?

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Perhaps you could show us whence your graphs came?

An extremist climate change site, of course.


Right click on the image then select and click "View Image", then look at the address bar.

[GordMay]

The graph https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/b...en_15/fig1.gif came from:
“Earth's Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow” ~ by James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato — July 2011
➥ https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_15/

You may want to do a little more reading., including, but not limited to:
“Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change” ~ by James E. Hansen & Makiko Sato [2012]
“... We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods of the past million years was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene. Polar warmth in these interglacials and in the Pliocene does not imply that a substantial cushion remains between today's climate and dangerous warming, but rather that Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate global warming. Thus goals to limit human-made warming to 2°C are not sufficient — they are prescriptions for disaster. Ice sheet disintegration is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. We suggest that ice sheet mass loss, if warming continues unabated, will be characterized better by a doubling time for mass loss rate than by a linear trend. Satellite gravity data, though too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century. Observed accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our conclusion that Earth's temperature now exceeds the mean Holocene value. Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.
➥ https://link.springer.com/chapter/10...-7091-0973-1_2

➥ https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20111208/

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I think you’ve identified one major cause for concern.
The natural climactic changes, that normally takes tens of thousands of years, is now occurring in mere centuries (in fact accelerating in recent decades) and we know why/how.

This is the same problem that Ridd was complaining about where the damage in a small geographical area is used as the proxy for assumptions regarding the entire thousand mile long, three thousand or so individual reefs which constitute the barrier reef system.

We know from the formation of cyclones in the Coral Sea sea surface hot spots do occur. We also know that fairly vast eddys occur in the East Australia current to carry these warmer bodies onto the reef and further south, onto the unprotected mainland coast. It appears highly probable that these would occasionally bathe local areas of the reef in hotter than normal water and cause local areas of bleaching. New growth over the dead bleached areas is what causes the reef to continue to grow bigger. It is a natural part of the reef growth mechanism and not to be legitimately used to infer the death of the entire reef.