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Earth Power News Science Technology

'Huge Wake Up Call': Third of Central, Northern Great Barrier Reef Corals Dead (smh.com.au) 145

iONiUM quotes a report from The Sydney Morning Herald: More than one-third of the coral reefs of the central and northern regions of the Great Barrier Reef have died in the huge bleaching event earlier this year, Queensland researchers said. Corals to the north of Cairns -- covering about two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef -- were found to have an average mortality rate of 35 percent, rising to more than half in areas around Cooktown. Bleaching occurs when abnormal conditions, such as warm seas, cause corals to expel tiny photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae. Corals turn white without these algae and may die if the zooxanthellae do not recolonize them. "It is fair to say we were all caught by surprise," Professor Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said. "It's a huge wake up call because we all thought that coral bleaching was something that happened in the Pacific or the Caribbean which are closer to the epicenter of El Nino events." The report says, "The northern end of the Great Barrier Reef was home to many 50- to 100-year-old corals that had died and may struggle to rebuild before future El Ninos push tolerance beyond thresholds."
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'Huge Wake Up Call': Third of Central, Northern Great Barrier Reef Corals Dead

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    until there is more plastic in the ocean than FISH

  • GM coral (Score:4, Informative)

    by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @06:44PM (#52213691)

    Some corals tolerate heat much better than others. We should identify the genes that make that possible, and clone them into other coral species. Some research is being done [smithsonianmag.com].

    • Re:GM coral (Score:5, Informative)

      by sl149q ( 1537343 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @07:34PM (#52213953)

      For a slightly more balanced view on this see here: https://judithcurry.com/2016/0... [judithcurry.com]

      One of the reasons that coral can adapt quickly is that their symbionts adapt quickly.

      From the above reference "Although coral genomes may evolve slowly, their symbionts have extremely fast generation times, averaging every 7 days. Furthermore the symbiont community consists of hundreds of symbionts that have already adapted to a wide variety of temperature, irradiance and salinity variables within different microclimates over the past million years. Symbiont shuffling and shifting is an evolutionary masterpiece that circumvents plodding evolutionary mechanisms of most organisms with long generation times and enables immediate adaptation.

      A good summary statement is provided by Baker et al. “flexibility in coral–algal symbiosis is likely to be a principal factor underlying the evolutionary success of these organisms”.
      "

      • Re:GM coral (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:24AM (#52215269) Homepage

        Apparently these symbionts didn't adapt quickly enough; much of the coral is dead.

        However, it's not unheard of for reefs to recover [scienceinpublic.com.au] faster than expected, if the water quality is good enough, so there's still some hope that any remaining symbionts will be more resilient in future. Unless they get hammered again [abc.net.au] too quickly...

        • by fyngyrz ( 762201 )

          Bleached coral is not always dead. Bleaching is caused by expulsion of the symbionts with the intent of acquiring new symbionts more able to produce nutrients under the current conditions.

          Death occurs in situations like this only if symbionts do not arrive and the coral starves.

          The media tends to overlook the details. As usual.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Nothing Judith Curry says is balanced.
        She's a professional apologist and skeptic for deniers, who keeps her head firmly in the sand and tries to explain how warming temperatures aren't actually warming temperatures. She barely escapes being an outright denier herself, by taking the "we need to know more" stance instead of "its not happening" stance.

    • Re:GM coral (Score:4, Interesting)

      by zmooc ( 33175 ) <zmooc@zmooc.DEGASnet minus painter> on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @09:31AM (#52216819) Homepage

      There's much more going on than "some research". Australia is actively breeding coral that is adapted to future conditions (lower pH, more CO2, higher temperatures) and is planning on releasing the results in the wild. I got this from the documentary about the Great Barrier Reef on Discovery Channel, but this article also describes it:

      http://www.nature.com/news/cli... [nature.com]

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Some corals tolerate heat much better than others. We should identify the genes that make that possible, and clone them into other coral species. Some research is being done [smithsonianmag.com].

      Apparently the corals which tolerate heat better are already there, in 50 to 65% of the corals in that region.

  • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @06:45PM (#52213701)
    We're debating bathroom peen inspectors in red states as a top priority.
  • UNESCO had drawn up a list of world heritage sites that were in danger from climate change, and Australia had the reefs removed [theguardian.com] because it would hurt tourism.

    Between this and WHO saying there's no real risk to spreading zika so please go the the Olympics, it's obvious that it's all about the money [youtube.com].

    • by Layzej ( 1976930 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @07:01PM (#52213803)

      UNESCO had drawn up a list of world heritage sites that were in danger from climate change, and Australia had the reefs removed [theguardian.com] because it would hurt tourism.

      To top it off, Australia has just gutted the research arm that studies this. [scientificamerican.com]

      See no evil. Hear no evil. [wikia.com]

    • by aXis100 ( 690904 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @07:14PM (#52213861)

      It's just appalling.

      To further highlight the farce, 3 months ago the Australian environment minister Greg Hunt was awarded "Best Minister in the World".

      Meanwhile under his watch we've:
      - Abolished the Carbon Tax
      - Increased our Carbon emmissions
      - Approved the biggest coal mine in the country
      - Approved additional dredging to allow for increased coal exports
      - Passed legislation to prevent environmentalists from legally challenging his rulings.
      - Did nothing whilst big chunks of the Great Barrier Reef died.
      - Called out the opposition leader on not offering support for communities that depend of reef tourism. I mean, WTF??

      • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @07:40PM (#52213973) Journal

        But everyone know Jesus loves oil and would never make CO2 harmful, and anyone who says otherwise is an evil Communist out to destroy capitalism.

      • Couple of points. The abolishment of the carbon tax was the primary election promise of the Liberal National Coalition, so you would expect that to happen.
        Our carbon emissions have actually decreased during this current government - See page 3 for a simple graph https://www.environment.gov.au... [environment.gov.au]
        You might disagree with the Adani coal project and the Gladstone upgrade but many many people do not. The fuss around the dredging was stupid. You are not going to stop ships going in and out of the harbour, so ma

      • by dywolf ( 2673597 )

        don't forget that that dredging also involves the dumping of the material removed near enough to the reefs that it will negatively impact the water clarity that coral depends on to survive.

      • You do realize that even had the most stringent Kyoto measures been enacted back in the 90's it would have had virtually no impact on current climate according to the computer models? So this still would have happened. But keep fucking the chicken of 'didn't do anything to stop it'.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      And then instead of being ashamed about getting references to the reef removed from the UN's report on climate change, Australia's (Anti) Environment minister then gloated about it on Twitter [twitter.com]:

      "Under Labor the U.N. put the Great Barrier Reef on the In-Danger 'Watch list'...Thanks to the coalition it came off"

      I wish this was satire but unfortunately it's not.

    • it's obvious that it's all about the money

      I heard a quote on sports radio, i've changed it a bit (since i don't have the original anyway):

      If you're looking at something that doesn't make sense, and you're wondering "Why the hell...?" the answer is probably "money"

    • by Layzej ( 1976930 )

      UNESCO had drawn up a list of world heritage sites that were in danger from climate change, and Australia had the reefs removed [theguardian.com] because it would hurt tourism.

      It looks like they spent 400,000 in lobbying efforts to keep the reef off the list. Money well spent? The environment minister recently tweeted: "Under Labor, the Great Barrier Reef was on-track to be listed as 'in danger'. It came off the 'watch list' under us."

      Responses were on the order of "are you fucking high mate?" - The https://www.buzzfeed.com/robst... [buzzfeed.com]

  • That's a known issue (Score:3, Informative)

    by no-body ( 127863 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @06:55PM (#52213759)

    So:

    - why is it happening?
    - why are the individuals/groups pulling the strings and the press allowing this to happen without yelling and screaming?
    (are the "protesters" considered lunatics?)
    Maybe dreamland: nothing happens to us, we can afford it... elysium-style
    Or - afraid of taking risks to go outside the "normal", loosing the comfort zone
    - does not concern me
    - too busy making ends meet ...

    It's really bad - one just can wonder what's causing it in human brains to let this happen.
    I recently met a guy: global warming does not exist and a huge waterfall of words arguing for why this is the case, impossible to even touch the subject - extremely determined.
    I just classify it as religious believe system - no real proof, continuous repetition burns the PROM and it runs forever, if you touch it, it may explode.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by geekpowa ( 916089 )

      Rushing off and blaming every adverse environmental outcome on climate change is in itself a religious belief system.

      All sorts of stressors on environment such as polluation from agricultural/catchment runoff. Land surface temp increase of around 0.7c over last 60 years or so + recent El Nino, may or many not be a contributor but no shortage of people falling over each other to lay blame principally at the feet of AGW

      • by no-body ( 127863 )

        Rushing off and blaming every adverse environmental outcome on climate change is in itself a religious belief system.

        All sorts of stressors on environment such as polluation from agricultural/catchment runoff. Land surface temp increase of around 0.7c over last 60 years or so + recent El Nino, may or many not be a contributor but no shortage of people falling over each other to lay blame principally at the feet of AGW

        Ah - AGW - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] - take your pick.

        Everything is illusion since it's based on your "instrument" - body/mind system and there is always a "computational" delay by the time the sensory impulse goes through your filters and reaches your response circuits.

        Other than that, nothing in your post answers or solves the issues - just mind-fuck, it is.

        • Mind. Blown. You trolling but just forgot to logout?

          I never intended to provide a fix for the problem. Although, generally speaking, the first step to fixing a problem is to correctly diagnose/attribute causes.

          • by no-body ( 127863 )

            ... correctly diagnose/attribute causes.

            See how far you are behind the curve, not even close - go pray to your spaghetti-monster or whatever it is you have....

      • by Livius ( 318358 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @07:45PM (#52213987)

        Rushing off and blaming every adverse environmental outcome on climate change is in itself a religious belief system.

        Which is why no-one listens to people like that.

        But we do listen to actual scientists.

        • Obviously the climate science deniers listen to them if only to try and shoot them down. It's like the only ones who bring up Al Gore are the same deniers.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        The causes of coral bleaching are known. Temperature stress causes the colorful symbiots to start leaching toxic chemicals, the host ejects them in response, then starves to death if things don't cool down in time for them to stop producing the toxins and resettle.

        The current El Nino is not as strong as ones in the past, but due to rising base temperatures the amount of heat it adds causes it to be the worst one we've seen.

        Climate change is completely to blame for this. And we are primarily to blame for cli

    • Did they continue the work that had been done looking at sunscreen effects [time.com] on coral? Were these areas particular favorites for snorkeling and scuba? I understand temperature is a part of it, but if we are looking for other environmental factors, hydrocarbons would be one to consider.

  • The Climate Change deniers will continue to deny it. You can't change their minds – they know what they know, and no amount of science will change their minds. Logic? That's a shibboleth to the deniers. If you use logic on them they just dig in their heels.

    Everyone else is already awake.
  • Sounds like a fine place to build port for coal exports.
  • Seriously, it amazes me that china will be allowed to continue growing their emission.
    • by moeinvt ( 851793 )

      "allowed"? Seriously?

      Who the hell do you think has the authority to tell the Chinese what is or is not "allowed" in terms of their domestic energy policy?

  • Let's ignore the fact that the earth has been significantly hotter, by several degree; had significantly higher CO2 levels, by several times. And TOTALLY IGNORE...the fact that we are leaching tons and tons of pesticides and herbicides into the water. Which have already been shown to cause harm to many micro-organisms and arthropods.

    Pesticides and Herbicides are the likely true reason our reefs are dying. These reefs have endure far greater temperature and CO2 variances over the millions of years.
    http://ww [wwf.org.au]

    • Let's ignore the fact that the earth has been significantly hotter, by several degree;

      What did the coral reefs look like then?

      had significantly higher CO2 levels, by several times.

      What did the planet look like then? Hint: NOT GOOD FOR US EITHER

      Pesticides and Herbicides are the likely true reason our reefs are dying.

      Herpes Virus is also killing reefs. However, this report is about reef damage which required a new explanation, not an old one. Those other things are causing steady dieoff, not catastrophic events.

      But we'd rather blame CO2 and Global Warming for every environmental problem,

      It is a fact that CO2 causes acidification, a fact that this causes reef erosion, and a fact that the ocean cannot sink this acidity as fast as we are causing it. What part of this do you find confusing?

    • The earth for much of the last several million years had CO2 levels that fluctuated between 280ppm to 220pm (220 was roughly when ice ages happened). This level has held since humans evolved until the industrial revolution. Since then C02 levels have gone above 400pm (as of a few years ago).

      CO2 levels are also increasing at a rate that's higher than any recorded event in the history of this planet, roughly 10 times the rate that caused the fastest climate change this planet has ever seen (Paleocene–Eo

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