The Great Barrier Reef- resistant coral

[transmitterdan]

Since decades coral bleaching events have occupied the literature and news cycle. Note the phraseology used above. Only very recently has the word “event” been dropped from the mainstream press in AGW contexts.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Exile

So why is it that I keep hearing & reading -- most notably from the BBC -- that coral "bleaching" is synonymous with coral "death"? But then I read from some of these links & elsewhere that bleaching is more of a temporary phenomenon that coral often recovers from, and that it has more resiliency to warmer temps then previously thought? Equating coral bleaching with "death" has a permanency to it that sounds quite alarming. Is that actually the point, or is it more a matter of semantics? Or has the science changed it's view on the issue over the past few years?

I'm not qualified to answer your thoughtful questions, but here is my simplistic takeaway from the studies reported in this thread.

First, the good news:

nine to 12 years [after a major bleaching event in Palau] we could even detect stability in coral-dominated states in certain habitats, something that is rare to document as the frequency of disturbances increases due to global climate change.

and...

Of all the world’s reefs, those in the Seychelles were worst affected by [the 1998 mass-bleaching event]. At first it was near-total destruction. More than 90 per cent of the coral was gone, 
a state of affairs that was largely unchanged for 
a full decade. In 2006, his team published 
a gloomy report on the reef’s outlook whose pessimistic conclusions have often been cited in reports about corals and climate change.

But between 2005 and 2011, something remarkable happened: coral cover returned almost completely on every other reef. Hard coral had covered 28 per cent of the area before the bleaching; by 2011 it was back up to 23 per cent. Graham says the reefs are on a clear 
path to a full recovery. Similar findings have been coming in from reefs all over the world.

Now the bad news:

Large-scale coral bleaching events used to occur every 27 years, notes Australia’s independent climate-communication organization the Climate Council in a report on the reef published in July. The current rate is once every six years. If climate change is not curtailed, the report advises, by the 2030s the Great Barrier Reef could experience mass coral bleaching every two years.

By 2050, says the National Academies report, most of the world’s reefs will be exposed to bleaching conditions annually.

In my opinion it's not the increased warmth or acidification that by themselves will prove insurmountable to coral, but rather it's the speed of change to their environment. If so, efforts we humans make to slow the rate of change will be worthwhile, even if temperatures ultimately still go higher than we wish they would. Acting earlier is much better than acting later.

[StuM]

https://www.openchannels.org/sites/default/files/literature/a_global_analysis_of_coral_bleaching_over_the_past _two_decades.pdf



Thermal-stress events associated with climate change cause coral bleaching and mortality that threatens coral reefs globally. Yet coral bleaching patterns vary spatially and temporally.Here we synthesize field observations of coral bleaching at 3351 sites in 81 countries from 1998 to 2017 and use a suite of environmental covariates and temperature metrics to analyze bleaching patterns. Coral bleaching was most common in localities experiencing high intensity and high frequency thermal-stress anomalies. However, coral bleaching was sig-nificantly less common in localities with a high variance in sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Geographically, the highest probability of coral bleaching occurred at tropical mid-latitude sites (15–20 degrees north and south of the Equator), despite similar thermal stress levels at equatorial sites. In the last decade, the onset of coral bleaching has occurred at significantly higher SSTs (∼0.5 °C) than in the previous decade, suggesting that thermally susceptible genotypes may have declined and/or adapted such that the remaining coral populations now have a higher thermal threshold for bleaching

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by StuM

https://www.openchannels.org/sites/default/files/literature/a_global_analysis_of_coral_bleaching_over_the_past _two_decades.pdf
...

Interesting.
Working Link to “A global analysis of coral bleaching over the past two decades” ~ by S. Sully et al.
➥ https://www.openchannels.org/sites/d...wo_decades.pdf

[Exile]

Originally Posted by SailOar

I'm not qualified to answer your thoughtful questions, but here is my simplistic takeaway from the studies reported in this thread.

First, the good news:

and...


Now the bad news:


In my opinion it's not the increased warmth or acidification that by themselves will prove insurmountable to coral, but rather it's the speed of change to their environment. If so, efforts we humans make to slow the rate of change will be worthwhile, even if temperatures ultimately still go higher than we wish they would. Acting earlier is much better than acting later.

Few would advocate against doing everything reasonably possible to try and preserve the health of coral reefs, but the Climate Council's "findings" upon which you rely (linked by Gord above) don't sound all that scientific. (Your link to Nat Geo didn't work for me). For example and as mentioned, their use of the term "unprecedented" to describe conditions in an area not seriously studied until the 1970s, along with a myopic focus on AGW while ignoring other obviously influential factors, suggests an agenda beyond the science. Maybe you can find more objective and therefore more credible sources to support your opinion.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Exile

... (Your link to Nat Geo didn't work for me)....

Oops. Thanks for the heads-up.

Can new science save dying coral reefs? | National Geographic Society

Originally Posted by Exile

Few would advocate against doing everything reasonably possible to try and preserve the health of coral reefs, but the Climate Council's "findings" upon which you rely (linked by Gord above) don't sound all that scientific....Maybe you can find more objective and therefore more credible sources to support your opinion.

From this post:

Large-scale coral bleaching events used to occur every 27 years, notes Australia’s independent climate-communication organization the Climate Council in a report on the reef published in July. The current rate is once every six years. If climate change is not curtailed, the report advises, by the 2030s the Great Barrier Reef could experience mass coral bleaching every two years.

By 2050, says the National Academies report, most of the world’s reefs will be exposed to bleaching conditions annually.

Do you also find a National Academies report to not be credible?

From the above National Geographic article:

The Australian authority that manages the Great Barrier Reef has traditionally resisted intervening in the reef’s ecology, preferring to let it recover naturally. But the bruising reality of climate change is forcing a more hands-on approach.

A report released on November 28 by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) comes to the same conclusion: Human intervention is needed to ensure the persistence of the world’s coral reefs, which are of incalculable value to “human well-being, national economies, and future wonder.”...


Large-scale coral bleaching events used to occur every 27 years, notes Australia’s independent climate-communication organization the Climate Council in a report on the reef published in July. The current rate is once every six years. If climate change is not curtailed, the report advises, by the 2030s the Great Barrier Reef could experience mass coral bleaching every two years.

By 2050, says the National Academies report, most of the world’s reefs will be exposed to bleaching conditions annually.

Corals can recover from bleaching, but not at that frequency. Hence the search for ways to boost coral abundance, such as the transplant technique Suggett is testing. Another Australian team is currently testing a different approach: They are seeding damaged patches of Great Barrier Reef with more than a million lab-raised coral larvae.....

[Exile]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Oops. Thanks for the heads-up.

Can new science save dying coral reefs? | National Geographic Society




From this post:


Do you also find a National Academies report to not be credible?

From the above National Geographic article:

Sorry. I missed the reference to the National Academies report, but will check it out along with the fixed Nat Geo link.

[GordMay]

... A report released on November 28 by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) comes to the same conclusion: Human intervention is needed to ensure the persistence of the world’s coral reefs, which are of incalculable value to “human well-being, national economies, and future wonder.”...

The above-noted report:

"A Research Review of Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs” ~ Consensus Study Report, 2018

“Coral reef declines have been recorded for all major tropical ocean basins since the 1980s, averaging approximately 30-50% reductions in reef cover globally. These losses are a result of numerous problems, including habitat destruction, pollution, overfishing, disease, and climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions and the associated increases in ocean temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have been implicated in increased reports of coral bleaching, disease outbreaks, and ocean acidification (OA)...
A growing body of research on coral physiology, ecology, molecular biology, and responses to stress has revealed potential tools to increase coral resilience. Some of this knowledge is poised to provide practical interventions in the short-term, whereas other discoveries are poised to facilitate research that may later open the doors to additional interventions. A Research Review of Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs reviews the state of science on genetic, ecological, and environmental interventions meant to enhance the persistence and resilience of coral reefs. The complex nature of corals and their associated microbiome lends itself to a wide range of possible approaches. This first report provides a summary of currently available information on the range of interventions present in the scientific literature and provides a basis for the forthcoming final report...”
➥ https://www.nap.edu/read/25279/chapter/1#xii

Report Highlights ➥ https://www.nap.edu/resource/25279/C...resilience.pdf

[transmitterdan]

I always marvel that only “unprecedented catastrophic damage” is due mainly to AGW. But when something unprecedentedly good happens it almost never can be attributed to AGW.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/...ent-of-normal/

This report is from a state and a newspaper pretty famous for running every AGW angle they can find. But in this feel-good story is nary a mention of AGW. California has switched from record drought to record water supply levels. There has never been such a turnaround in their water resources so far as i can tell.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Exile

Few would advocate against doing everything reasonably possible to try and preserve the health of coral reefs, but the Climate Council's "findings" upon which you rely (linked by Gord above) don't sound all that scientific.

Not surprising. The Climate Council is the outfit that Flim Flam Flannery set up after he lost his job on the Climate Commission. Alarmists every one of them.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by StuM

Not surprising. The Climate Council is the outfit that Flim Flam Flannery set up after he lost his job on the Climate Commission. Alarmists every one of them.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine comes to an even more dire conclusion -- suggesting annual bleaching by 2050 rather than the Climate Council's biennial bleaching by 2030. Are you equally skeptical of the NAS's scientific chops?

[SailOar]

The Great Barrier Reef Was Seen as ‘Too Big to Fail.’ A Study Suggests It Isn’t.

....[A] study, released Wednesday in the journal Nature by researchers from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia, monitored the death and birth of corals following ocean heat waves that caused mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017.

Not only did many of the adult corals die off, but for the first time, researchers observed a significant decline in new corals settling on the reef, compromising its capacity to recover.

“There are so many corals, and it’s been disturbed many times in the past,” said Andrew Baird, chief investigator at the research center and one of the paper’s lead authors.

“We never thought we’d see this happen,” he said.

The study is the first to show the collapse of fundamental ecosystem processes in a marine environment, Professor Baird said....

Since 1998, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered four mass bleaching events, two of them back to back in 2016 and 2017. While coral populations can recover from a bleaching event — which stresses individual corals and strips them of their vibrant color — they need up to a decade to do so. And if carbon emissions continue at the high-emissions scenario, bleaching will occur twice every decade starting in 2035, and annually after 2044, according to climate models from Unesco....

According to the researchers’ findings, the settlement of baby corals on the reef declined 89 percent last year. The coral that experienced the most significant decline in new organisms, at 93 percent, was a type called Acropora, which provides most of the reef habitat that supports thousands of other species, including coral trout, clown fish and triggerfish.

Adult corals that were further south escaped bleaching, but they were too far from the bleached northern reefs to help them replenish, the scientists found. They also explored the impact of back-to-back cyclones in 2014 and 2015 on the reef’s north at Lizard Island, which, despite killing off 80 percent of the adult corals, did not cause a decline in new corals settling.

“Cyclones are fairly patchy,” Professor Baird said, whereas heat and bleaching “just kills everything.”

The corals that do manage to survive such trauma, however, were found to be more resistant to periods of extreme warmth in a separate study conducted by Professor Baird and his colleagues last year. Scientists have been trying to breed the most resilient forms of coral in the hope that they can use these to repopulate the reef.....

[StuM]

Originally Posted by SailOar

The Great Barrier Reef Was Seen as ‘Too Big to Fail.’ A Study Suggests It Isn’t.

Ah, yes. Another dire paper from Terry Hughes at JCU - the main target of Peter Ridd's criticisms of shoddy research.


Interestingly, in the recent trial, towards the end of Day 2 Judge Vasta specifically requested that Mr Murdoch QC explain to the court what quality assurance procedures were in place at ARC etc with regard to research. The request was totally ignored.

[StuM]

The last sentence of the Media Release from the ARC Centre on the above paper is a perfect illustration of their agenda:


"There’s only one way to fix this problem,” says Hughes, “and that’s to tackle the root cause of global heating by reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero as quickly as possible.”

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by StuM

Ah, yes. Another dire paper from Terry Hughes at JCU - the main target of Peter Ridd's criticisms of shoddy research.


Interestingly, in the recent trial, towards the end of Day 2 Judge Vasta specifically requested that Mr Murdoch QC explain to the court what quality assurance procedures were in place at ARC etc with regard to research. The request was totally ignored.

Yep, this was a story on the local news tonight.

• Researchers that look like unemployed hippies: Check.
• The claim (associated with much hand waving) that the "only solution" is to immediately cease the burning of fossil fuels: Check.
• The report announced on the same day Adani awaits final approval for it's Australian coal project: Check.