Great Barrier Reef Has Worst Coral Die-Off Ever, Report Finds (usatoday.com) 235
Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered from its worst coral die-off ever recorded, according to a new study from the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies based at James Cook University. "Stress from the unusually warm ocean water heated by man-made climate change and the natural El Nino climate pattern caused the die-off," reports USA Today. At more than 1,400 miles long, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef and the planet's biggest structure made by living organisms. In the northernmost section of the reef, which had been considered the most "pristine," some 67% of the coral died. The good news, scientists said, was that central and southern sections of the reef fared far better, with "only" 6% and 1% of the coral dead, respectively. Coral reefs result from the work of little polyps, creatures only a few millimeters long, budded on top of one another. Over centuries, the shells of these creatures combine to form the exotic shapes of coral reefs. Tiny differences in the anatomy of each polyp species affect the shape of their shells and produce the exotic shapes of each reef. The vibrant colors that draw thousands of tourists to the Great Barrier Reef each year come from algae that live in the corals tissue. When water temperatures become too high, coral becomes stressed and expels the algae, which leave the coral a bleached white color. Mass coral bleaching is a new phenomenon and was never observed before the 1980s as global warming ramped up. Besides their beauty, reefs shelter land from storms, and are also a habitat for myriads of species.
Presidential response... (Score:5, Informative)
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
- Donald Trump
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385
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The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
- Donald Trump
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385
That's been taken out of context.
The context is that Trump doesn't have any idea of what's going to come out of his mouth before he opens it.
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It's a fucking Twitter post; there is no context. That's a problem with using it as a platform to try to articulate political positions. It's shallow, like our political discourse these days.
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just to clear this up it would be very difficult to actually destroy the actual planet
now removing the room for Humans is "doable"
the difference between the BIOSphere and the GEOsphere is non trivial
Interesting take, but ... (Score:3)
... what does the Trump administration have to say about it?
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We'll build a barrier, and it'll be huge
Re:Interesting take, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because climate change is a hoax...
By the chinese.
Uh, but seriously, he says whatever it takes to distract. He actually says one thing and then appoints a a team of climate change deniers [theatlantic.com] to the most key positions of his cabinet.
And all of this might just be intended to distract the public from his conflicts of interest [nytimes.com].
Not sure which one (Score:3, Informative)
The current team don't have anyone for environment I think. Nearest swamp thing is probably "Michal Catazaro, energy lobbyist whose clients include American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Hess, Devon Energy, and Encana Oil and Gas" in charge of "Energy Independence".
On his opinion, the nearest I can find is this:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Climate-Gate.html
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the
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Something uninteresting.
jeez (Score:2)
unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
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Their kids will care, and will ask those Rust Belters "Why did you allow some fucking moron to screw things up, just because you didn't want to switch careers?"
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Their kids will care, and will ask those Rust Belters "Why did you allow some fucking moron to screw things up, just because you didn't want to switch careers?"
Sorry, they tried to switch careers. Then their job was outsourced to a H1B and imported labor.
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Cost of energy [Re:unlikely] (Score:3)
When your electricity rate goes from 0.07 to 0.18kWh in less then 10 years, and people have problems keeping the lights on? \
The cost of energy in constant dollars has been going down, not up.
Here's a graph of energy costs. Electrical costs have dropped from about $0.026/kWh (equal to $0.21/kWh in today's dollars) in 1960 to $12.67/kWh today.
http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/st... [eia.gov]
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The cost of energy in constant dollars has been going down, not up.
Bzzt. http://www.ontario-hydro.com/c... [ontario-hydro.com]
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Oh cry me a river. You still have the cheapest energy in the world and some of the highest salaries. Outside of the US people pay double that in developed countries (current European rates are close to 30 US cents per kWh), and maybe 10 times that in the poorer ones.
You could try using less energy, possibly by wasting less of it heating ridiculous sized properties?
Really? Still have the cheapest energy. Sure, let's add in gasoline, the requirement that if you live outside of a major city -- to get anywhere you need to drive. If you need a specialist, you're probably driving 200km or more, 500km isn't uncommon. Yep, that's sure making things cheap. Lets toss in those "high salaries" where the median income is around $50k/year. Now let's subtract 30% of that due to the dollar being depressed against every other western country. Don't worry if I'm showing your ig
Dollar not depressed [Re:unlikely] (Score:2)
Now let's subtract 30% of that due to the dollar being depressed against every other western country.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. The dollar was 1 Euro in 2000; it's 0.94 Euro today. https://www.google.com/finance... [google.com] The dollar was106 Japanese yen in 2000; it's 113 yen today. https://www.google.com/finance... [google.com] And the dollar has actually risen against the pound: https://www.google.com/finance... [google.com]
I don't see how that can be described as as being "depressed".
...You apparently have no idea how small houses are here.
Since in an earlier post you said "Good thing I'm not American", I have no idea where "here" is.
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I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Apparently you don't. Because in Canada, 1CAD=0.72USD, and 1CAD=0.69EUR, 1CAD=0.59GBP You figure out that 30% depression works in yet?
Since in an earlier post you said "Good thing I'm not American", I have no idea where "here" is.
Can't read either, follow the thread chain next time.
Up and down [Re:Dollar not depressed] (Score:2)
I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Apparently you don't. Because in Canada, 1CAD=0.72USD, and 1CAD=0.69EUR, 1CAD=0.59GBP You figure out that 30% depression works in yet?
Up and down. The Canadian dollar was $(US) 0.69 in 2000, it's $(US) 0.744 now-- no long term difference.
30% down if you pick the right points.
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no long term difference.
Apparently you don't know anything about the economics of Canada either, and why having a low dollar now has a larger impact on everything here. Especially since that low dollar was used directly as a incentive to "cheaper made" goods. Something that Canada has lost as the manufacturing industry has effectively packed up and left. Low dollar values do not translate well to service based economies, if you need a longer explanation look at Greece.
Re:unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just rust belters, a common saying among red party boaters in Florida is that we should find a really great specimen of a Manatee, shoot it, stuff it, put it in a museum, and then get rid of all the god damned speed limits for boats in coastal manatee habitat, because f- these giant cow things that have been here for millions of years, I've got twin 250s on my new open fisherman and I damn well want to open the throttle straight out of the marina instead of putzing out to open water before I can throw a wake.
Yeah, boomers don't give a shit what the place will look like when they're gone.
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And in 50 to 200 years, you can grow as many manatee as you want in jars and dump a million into the ocean.
These are only problems from a static viewpoint. A hundred years from now is less predictable than now is from 1900, when a lack of filthy cars meant waking up every morning with a layer of clean, organic, natural horse shit dust on your furniture.
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a lack of filthy cars meant waking up every morning with a layer of clean, organic, natural horse shit dust on your furniture.
You paint the picture with words so vividly.
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You believe the shit they show on CSI, too, don't you? Can you enhance that image of the future for me?
Yes, the next 100 years _should_ result in greater progress than the last 100, if we don't backslide into some stagnant pool of true conservatism. The thing about future progress is: it's unpredictable. Dolly the sheep was "cloned" (depending on what you accept as a definition of cloning) in 1996. 20 years later we've made tremendous progress in genome sequencing, gene splicing, identification of genet
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Nobody really knows, but practical, full capability cloning seems to be sharing the "progress" list with cold fusion and artificial intelligence, always at least 5 to 10 years away from serious application.
Because it doesn't seem financially viable. Ok, so... you cloned Dolly. So what? What will it actually GET you? Cloning a creature is an order of magnitude more expensive than naturally birthing one from two parents, so the question is.. why would we want to? Why would we care?
It's the difference between theoretical science and applied science. The theoretical science part has certainly leaped ahead of applied science, which has somewhat shrugged because we don't see the benefits to cloning yet. Everything
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Cloning dolly is many orders of magnitude easier than cloning a wooly mammoth, or sabre tooth tiger - even when cost is no object.
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And, about the horse shit dust - not everybody could afford a horse, far less per capita than actually own and drive cars in the US today. And, all in all, I'd much rather raise my children in a house covered in horse shit dust than coal-borne mercury ash, diesel soot, PCBs, and all the other hallmarks of "modern progress."
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A hundred years from now is less predictable than now is from 1900
Indeed, few people in 1900 would have thought they'd live to see the horrors of Two World Wars.
Things have improved since 1945 in many ways, but there is no guarantee that many people will see the other side of WW3.
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They'll tell them the same thing our grandparent generation told us when we asked them about Hitler: We were hungry, we were out of a job, and there was someone who offered both. When you're hungry and freezing, you don't give a shit about whether someone else gets a problem.
Some might sugar coat it to feel better about themselves, but that's the naked truth.
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There is an odd man out in that list, and that is Hitler. All the others were never really elected. Hitler was. Eventually, he was elected in a rigged election, granted, but he ran in elections before and he did get a sizable portion of the votes.
None of the rest were ever elected in any way.
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Hitler was not elected. His National Socialist party did get something like 40% of the vote, which meant he was the logical candidate for Chancellor. Once he was Chancellor, he just kept grabbing more and more power without bothering with elections.
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European systems usually require coalition governments, 40% is actually quite a high turnout for a single party, if you take a look at some current governments, Austria [wikipedia.org] currently has a coalition government of two parties, neither of which has more than 30% itself, only together they reach the 50%.
40% is a wet dream for most contemporary governments that aren't relying on a first-past-the-post system where you only have essentially two parties to choose from. And that's not very different from Germany in the
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But be damned
It's telling that the Republicans answer (Score:2)
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Just because you can't get laid...
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And kill kill kill! Have 10 or 20 kids! Get them all to KILL KILL KILL the gay vegan mooooooooooooooslims or they're gonna getcha! KILL! MURDER! WAR! DESTRUCTION! KILL! WAR! MURDER! KILL!
This was the perfect nonsense response to the super-nonsense grandparent poster.
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Watch the movie Idiocracy, and lament.
Idiocracy was a fun amusing movie, but you shouldn't take the science or its implications seriously. It's based on the most vile and discredited eugenics philosophy.
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Then you'd better tell your kids to forget manufacturing. It's a dead end.
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Judging by the Bush-Obama transition, sometime in December things will cease to be Bush's fault and will be Trump's fault.
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Depends on where you start from, a couple of college kids in Miami could afford to go SCUBA diving on weekends for about the same money other college kids would blow on booze at the strip in Ft. Lauderdale (in the 1980s).
These days, video programs and documentaries make the world's oceans more accessible to the rust belt, grain belt, bible belt, and every other belt you can name than ever before. The presentations tend to be a bit biased, and it's nothing like being there in person, but if we all went in p
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Of course expensive is always going to be relative, but I don't think this is necessarily true. I wouldn't for example say that it's more expensive than something like skiing, or snowboarding, or having a hobby such as playing with motorbikes, or hotrods. I think most people could afford to dive, if they wanted to, but beyond that I think you're right - it's just not on most people's radar.
I understand there has actually been a decrease in people diving in recent years, so I think there is probably some inc
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Those are basically the same conditions we dive in in the UK, through the summer months you'd be fine in a semi-dry suit which can be picked up quite cheaply. The other option that will suit year round is a dry suit, which are much more expensive, but can be hired pretty cheaply.
For a typical dive you'll still feel far warmer than you would on a winters day, so it's really not too bad, though I agree it's hardly the same as diving along the equator.
Re:unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I feel like I'm in the twilight zone living in my rural town of 25k people. Per capita, we require far more government assistance due to the amount of roads/utilities/police and fire coverage because we're so damn spread out.. most people don't realize how many millions of dollars in state and federal grants (i.e. aid) we receive each year to keep our town looking nice.
The one thing I'm proud of is that my town has always supported school tax levies as well as tax levies for the public library and the disability support program in the county.
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Depends on where you dive - the reefs off Key Largo, Florida have been crappy since the 70s, at least compared to the ones further down in the Keys.
The anecdotes from professionals who have been diving all over the world from virtually the first days of SCUBA match yours:
https://www.mission-blue.org/ [mission-blue.org]
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I'll let you into a current diving secret, and you may find this news rather positive. Because of the current lack of tourism in Egypt due to terrorist attacks elsewhere in Africa on tourists, the Egyptian revolution and subsequent military crackdowns as a result of the coup, and the bombing of the Russian civilian airliner by ISIS or whoever decided to take responsibility the red sea reefs have made an astounding and profound recovery in just a couple of years.
The sheer volume of life and quality of the re
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"The bright, vibrant colours you see in pictures aren't what you will ever see underwater on a tourist trip.
Red light, and the colour tones nearest red, are basically gone after 1 meter of seawater. There's simply not enough light in that spectrum making it from the surface, to the coral, to your eyes. That's why a lot of fish are red - the colour basically vanishes unless it's up in your face."
Nonsense, I do a lot of underwater photography and this simply isn't true. Our eyes are incredibly good at adjusti
Real results, but partly politicised. (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I'm a physicist at James Cook University, where this study was published. My mother used to work at AIMS 20 years ago, my sister works for CSIRO in marine research, and my cousin-in-law is currently the Coral Reef ARC's COO.
These are results published by the Australian Research Council Centre for Coral Reef Studies. Prof. Terry Hughes, who runs this centre at JCU, has basically surrounding himself with like-minded people. The self-citation rate for articles published by the centre is remarkably high, and I quite frankly don't trust Prof. Hughes to do unbiased research, or to critically analyse his own work. There is a pretty strong monoculture of reef research, and I believe it's a pretty serious problem. One of my physics lecturers wrote a rebuttal [theaustralian.com.au] letter to Prof Hughes that was leaked to the press, and was disciplined for it (one more strike and he's fired). I would really like to see a little more diversity in the people that study this topic.
That said, I have no reason to doubt the truth of this study. The die-off is real, and is unprecedented in modern times, and elementary physics tells us that increased temperatures due to climate change can only make it worse, not better. My mum's old boss from AIMS, Charlie Veron [wikipedia.org] said in a seminar 10 years ago that the reef is probably doomed, and that even if we manage to stop all CO2 today, there's enough inertia that very little of the reef will survive.
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2. Are you saying that a scientist was disciplined for rebutting another scientist?!
3. If the reef can't adapt then literally it deserves to die-- it's called evolution.
We need to stop watching Fern Gully and end this "pristine nature" worship. It's not productive, it solves no problems, it's really nothing but facile virtue signalling based on the false premise that pristine nature is valuable and that the earth is somehow damaged just by the presence of
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(if you're capable of objective self-reflection)
Nobody is capable of objective self-reflection.
As for the rest of what you said: your arrogance and ad hominems don't qualify as a rational argument.
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“In fact, there are literally hundreds of square kilometres of dead reef-flat on the Great Barrier Reef which was killed due to the slow sea-level fall of about a meter that has occurred over the last 5000 years,” he said. “My point is not that they have probably got this completely wrong but rather what are the quality assurance measures they take to try to ensure they are not telling a misleading story?”
I thought the sea level was rising thanks to AGW?
For number three, about avoiding the destruction of the reef... Are there some ways we can do that without costing insane amounts of money and/or resources?
Re:Simple question on the science (Score:4, Interesting)
You're partly right - the answer really varies as different reefs are affected in different ways, but fundamentally global warming can exacerbate effects such as El Nino/La Nina, so that your 3c increase may become 5c for a time. The issue is that these ecosystems are fragile and it only takes small changes to do immense damage. It's not that nature can't adapt to temperature fluctuations and such, it's that it can't adapt at the rate of change we're forcing on it. In terms of global warming in general consider the Polar Bear, normally climate would change over thousands of years and Polar Bears would become more brown, have less insular fur and move south and become more like grizzlies, but we're forcing change to their environment in decades, that's just not long enough for enough generations to be selected for brown fur - you just aren't going to go from white fur to brown fur (and possibly lose some insulating features) and adapt in that kind of compressed time frame, which is why they're at risk.
For what it's worth there are reefs that don't seem particularly affected at all by the temperature change, the Great Barrier Reef seems to be one of the most especially fragile ones, and coupled with it's immense size this makes it stand out. See my other post elsewhere on this topic where I point out that the Red Sea reefs are currently at their most vibrant they've been in a long, long time regardless of temperature change, simply because of the reduction in tourism to Egypt. In contrast, much of the Great Barrier Reef is already protected from humans, yet is still suffering. This should really highlight how different reefs are affected in different ways, that they can recover, but recovery needs different things in different reefs - lack of human presence is doing wonders in Egypt's Red Sea, but it's doing nothing for the Great Barrier Reef, my suspicion being that the Great Barrier Reef suffers far more greatly from the changes in a body as large as the Pacific than the far better protected Red Sea does where humans are by far the largest problem.
Climate change isn't an inherent problem in itself, man-made or natural, you're right, it happens. The problem is the rate of climate change that's occuring right now, that's the real issue here, nature just doesn't have sufficient time to adapt right now which is why we're seeing events like this and why this period is often being called a mass extinction event period.
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Am I mistaken? If not, it seems to me this article is ignoring the much larger natural variations in order to blame the die off on the much smaller increase which might be global-warming related.
Yes, you are mistaken, and no, "this article" is not "ignoring the much larger natural variations in order to blame the die off on the much smaller increase which might be global-warming related."
Many species, including coral polyps and especially their symbiotic zooxanthellæ, are robust to a degree of variability in the temperature of their local environment, as long as that variation occurs around relatively stable means for each respective species. However, they are much more sensitive to medium- t
That was informative, thanks (Score:2)
Thanks for the info.
Money.. (Score:3)
Probably the "best" way to fix it is making the alive corals something profitable, like artificially raising the price of something that lives off it tremendously via marketing, de beers style.
16ms later monsanto would come up with a heat resistant coral and profit off it.
Very worrying (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides their beauty, reefs shelter land from storms, and are also a habitat for myriads of species.
Coral reefs are not just beautiful, though; they constitute only perhaps a few % of the oceans' environment, but they support something like 25% or more of all life in the sea, so we really do need to protect them.
GMO coral (Score:2)
The planet is not coming back to old normal and we got to do what we have to do to mitigate the effects right?
Corals in the Arctic (Score:2)
So, to believe the post, if the coral is dying off because the water is getting too warm, it stands
to reason that coral will start flourishing in areas that formerly had cold waters, but now the
water is warming up enough to support coral growth.
Alternate sources (Score:5, Informative)
Some alternate sources:
Australia: http://www.news.com.au/technol... [news.com.au]
BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... [bbc.com]
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
Shameless Troll (Score:2, Insightful)
How is that "more realistic" than the links quoted above? It's more realistic than the Outdide Magazine orbitiary it debunks, but it agrees with the articles above when it notes that this "is the most severe coral bleaching on record."
Re:bah humbug global warming (Score:5, Informative)
Thank you Mr Coward. But while water quality does impact the health of the GBR in a few specific areas, it does not cause bleaching [aims.gov.au].
This [aims.gov.au] is what AIMS has to say about recent bleaching events:
In 2016, record oceans temperatures have led to record widespread coral bleaching on Australian coral reefs. This bleaching is part of the ongoing third global bleaching event, declared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2015.
Between February and May, the Great Barrier Reef experienced record warm sea surface temperatures. Extensive field surveys and aerial surveys found bleaching was the most widespread and severe in the Far Northern management area, between Cape York and Port Douglas. Here, bleaching intensity was ‘Severe’ (more than 60% community bleaching). Bleaching intensity decreased along a southerly gradient. While most reefs exhibited some degree of bleaching, this bleaching varied in intensity (from less than 10% to over 90% community bleaching) and was patchy throughout most of the management area.
The impact from this bleaching event, the most widespread and severe ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef, is still unfolding. Based on in-water monitoring surveys, overall coral mortality is (as of June 2016) at 22% for the entire Great Barrier Reef. Coral mortality is highest in the northern section. Post-bleaching reef monitoring surveys towards the end of the year will provide further clarity on the full extent of coral mortality.
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Bleaching intensity decreased along a southerly gradient. While most reefs exhibited some degree of bleaching, this bleaching varied in intensity (from less than 10% to over 90% community bleaching) and was patchy throughout most of the management area.
Did that bleaching gradient correlate with a similar temperature gradient? Sea temperatures have risen less than a degree centigrade since the 1800s; if coral reefs are *that* sensitive to temperature changes, they're probably screwed either way - humanity might be speeding it up, but the world's still on a warming trend absent human impact too. It's sad, but organisms that cannot adapt to changing environments die.
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Yes, because all seas everywhere rise by the same temperature. Science. Learn some.
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Some of the areas of the GBR that are experiencing widespread bleaching are literally hundreds of miles offshore, and a lot of those shorelines are not urban. It's not runoff, it's not industrial pollution, it's a global phenomenon that's making this happen.
Re: bah humbug global warming (Score:5, Informative)
To be accurate, coral bleaching is caused by environmental stress, as it said in my first link - and polluted water or heavy sedimentation are possible sources of stress. Even excessive freshwater can cause bleaching (which contributed in 2008 and 2011).
However, those are not the cause of this event, as my second link made quite clear.
Re: bah humbug global warming (Score:4, Insightful)
Dead coral, skeletons, are white.
Bleaching is a simplification, and basically means the presence of large swaths of long-dead corals, usually corals that died together in a short period of time.
It's like the forests of trees hundreds of years old that have been clearcut - all we have to do is leave them alone for a few thousand years and they will repopulate to something approximately like what they were before we started messing with them.
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Coral cannot survive in water above a certain temperature threshold. If water temperatures sustain the coral may never recover. If the northern reaches of the BGR (those that are the closest to the equator) end up with unsurvivable water temperatures the coral in those areas will die off permanently.
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We all die permanently, even species, though cockroaches have had a pretty good run.
There are deep water corals, and some of the shallow water corals on the GBR will migrate south to cooler waters as the climate changes, life will go on.
But, yeah, it's going to suck bigtime for a dozen to a hundred human generations if we don't get our shit together pronto.
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"But before we ban sunscreens, we must first determine if local ambient concentrations of sunscreens are positively correlated with coral bleaching events." Danovaro says banning sunscreen won't be necessary, and points out two simple things swimmers can do to reduce their impact on coral: Use sunscreens with physical filters, which reflect instead of absorb ultraviolet radiation; and use eco-friendly chemical sunscreens.
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@hyperbolic propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
"Ice Age Fallacy, is to allege that scientists showed concerns about global cooling which did not materialise, therefore there is no need to heed current scientific concerns about climate change.[58] In a 1998 article promoting the Oregon Petition, Fred Singer argued that expert concerns about global warming should be dismissed on the basis that what he called "the same hysterical fears" had supposedly been expressed earlier about global cooling.[59]"
"Illustrating this argument, for several years an image has been circulated of a Time magazine cover, supposedly dated 1977, showing a penguin above a cover story title "How to Survive the Coming Ice Age". In March 2013, The Mail on Sunday published an article by David Rose, showing this same cover image, to support his claim that there was as much concern in the 1970s about a "looming 'ice age'" as there was now about global warming.[60][61] After researching the authenticity of the magazine cover image, in July 2013, Bryan Walsh, a senior editor at Time, confirmed that the image was a hoax, modified from a 2007 cover story image for "The Global Warming Survival Guide".[58]"
i.e. you've been led to believe there was a scientific consensus on global cooling due to falling temperatures in the 50s,60s and 70s, and you were likely shown fake Time magazine covers to illustrate this, and thus you are supposed to ignore the scientific consensus on global warming.
But the temperatures didn't fall in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, so even a cursive check on the facts shows you how you've been misled.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
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I too can personally remember warnings of global cooling in the 70's and, more so, the early 80's, as reported in print media*. I can still hear some of the debates I and my school friends had on the topic (and yes, we were woefully naive).
What I don't remember is reading about consensus (from the scientific community), the intimate details of the science behind it, long term international bodies being set up to assess, inform, and counteract climate change, and many of the other things that characterise in
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What I don't remember is reading about consensus (from the scientific community)...
Because back then people were taught critical-thinking skills and the scientific method, and so "consensus" was a non-starter because consensus is irrelevant to whether a theory is valid or false. We were taught about Copernicus and Galileo and how they were persecuted because the "consensus" went against their theories.
...the intimate details of the science behind it...
What "intimate details"? We can't even get them to release un-"adjusted" data. They don't have computer models that accurately track previous climate changes and simultaneously show the fut
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I've been alive since the mid-'50s and YES, we were all warned about the coming ice age and snowball-Earth and all the rest of the crap through the '60s and '70s. Same alarmism as today, complete with scientists warning that "action must be taken *now*!".
No doubt it seemed that way in your echo chamber of hysterical wackjobs, but there was never a scientific consensus on that like there is on this. Only a tiny, vocal few espoused that view. The media will reprint anything which attracts eyeballs, true or not, and that has always been true. They used to present such articles as a jnow we have whole networks like CNN and Faux news which show little else. If the global cooling scare had been anything like what you claim, it would be trivial to find supporting
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You keep talking about this 'consensus' like it means anything scientifically.
It is a useful gauge for the relative merit of ideas. If the majority of experts in a field believe something, it is likely true unless the whole field is invalid. Since it isn't, the thing is likely true.
Just stop. It doesn't make you or your argument more believable. In fact, the opposite is true among those who can employ critical thinking.
What you just did was attempt derailment by attacking my idea while failing to address the point raised. If you get near a legitimate point, then make it, but right now you're just being evasive because you know you're full of shit. Put up some evidence, or shut the fuck up about global cooling, or accept
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Cripes, has nobody here had even the very basics of how science works explained to them?
Yes, and we are trying to explain it to you, because it's obvious you haven't yet.
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...but there was never a scientific consensus on that like there is on this.
You keep talking about this 'consensus' like it means anything scientifically. It. Does. Not.
Actually, it does. This is something non-scientists really really don't understand, because they're all familiar with all the hero scientist stories and not so much with the actual process of science. I love the hero scientist stories, too, but the final, and the most important part of science is that you have to explain your results to other scientists, and get them to understand it and understand and credit the evidence.
Science is not a one person endeavor . Science is, in essence, a series of protoco
How science is done. (Score:2)
Actually, it does. This is something non-scientists really really don't understand, because they're all familiar with all the hero scientist stories and not so much with the actual process of science. I love the hero scientist stories, too, but the final, and the most important part of science is that you have to explain your results to other scientists, and get them to understand it and understand and credit the evidence.
Wrong.
The only thing that matters is being able to reproduce the proof independently. If the results proving a theory are unable to be duplicated independently it's nothing more than an unproven hypothesis.
Exactly. That is how you get scientific consensus, when other scientists can duplicate your reasoning and follow your results, and compare your results to results from others (often, from others in different fields).
This is what we call scientific consensus.
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Exactly. That is how you get scientific consensus, when other scientists can duplicate your reasoning and follow your results, and compare your results to results from others (often, from others in different fields).
This is what we call scientific consensus.
That's the problem here. There's no actual *independent* review and verification.
In the case of AGW that's only happened among a small subset of "climate scientists" who are only accepted as being respectable "climate scientists" if they already agree manbearpig is trashing the climate, and it's only a matter of in how many ways and how badly. If any others attempt to refute any of their hypothesis they are dismissed as being "unqualified to offer an opinion" or simply painted as nutcases.
There's no intelle
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You don't have the slightest notion of climate science when you say you think that it's 'only a small subset of "climate scientists' that have done the works underlying the science of global warming, or that there isn't independent review and verification.
Really.
Please, think about maybe learning something from a real science source. I don't know where you're getting your lack of information from, but it's certainly not from real science sources.
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You don't have the slightest notion of climate science when you say you think that it's 'only a small subset of "climate scientists' that have done the works underlying the science of global warming, or that there isn't independent review and verification.
Really.
Please, think about maybe learning something from a real science source. I don't know where you're getting your lack of information from, but it's certainly not from real science sources.
And thus you prove my point in your reply.
Is that fact completely lost on you?
Maybe you should re-read my post and your reply and think about it. It says more about you than I.
Strat
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Since you don't seem to know anything about climate science, it doesn't do much good to reread your reply.
The greenhouse effect, of course, has been known for well over a century, but the modern global climate model incorporating numerical integration was Manabe and Wetherald, 1967. But, of course, since you dismiss all climate scientists, you dismiss that, I suppose, along with all the other work ever done. In fact, you can dismiss every paper! They're all done by " 'only a small subset of "climate scient
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I'll leave this here.
https://youtu.be/QwviDPo4Rh4 [youtu.be]
Strat
How to learn about science (Score:2)
Good, that answers my question.
I wrote:
I don't know where you're getting your lack of information from, but it's certainly not from real science sources.
and the answer is, you get your information about science from youtube videos.
OK, got it.
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Observations are not reproduced...
Observations must be able to be verified independently and/or be reproducible. Until then it is an unproven hypothesis. Analysis of unverifiable/un-reproducible observations is a thought experiment, nothing more.
Strat
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as the man said, you are woefully ignorant on this topic, so much so that you lack the vocabulary to even phrase it properly, and are "not even wrong."
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if 20 people perform the same experiment/observation, and 19 of them get the same results/conclusion, the 1 left out is not automatically equally valid.
that is a de facto consensus.
we're not talking about an opinion poll among scientists.
we are talking about groups of people who have come to the same conclusions independently.
using geocentrism as your talking point further reveals your own ignorance on the topic. .
geocentrism did originate as a scientific concept, but as a religious one
the consensus you sp
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I'll just leave this here.
https://youtu.be/QwviDPo4Rh4 [youtu.be]
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people thought we were slipping into another Ice Age
Spot the idiot!
The whole global cooling has been hashed over ad nauseam here and many other places. If you're still banging that drum, the only reason can be willful, mindful ignorance. That basically means you're an idiot.
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Perhaps it has, but that doesn't change the fact that people were, at one time, promoting that theory.
So? You can find "people" pushing any theory. There ar still people pushing the flat earth theory. That doesn't mean it has any credibility.
The fact that "global cooling" has changed to "global warming" in 30-40 years (the blink of an eye on a geological time scale) demonstrates that the authors and scientists who were studying the issue back then were not infallible.
What are you talking about. Global coo
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I'm totally sick of the hyperbolic propaganda. Stop lying.
then why do you keep posting it?
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I'll trust the scientists in the article before trusting a random loser on slashdot like you.
He's not a random loser! He's a reasonably predictable and orderly loser. Facts still matter, sir, even in Trumplandia.
Re:It's dead Jim (Score:5, Insightful)
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Maybe the Marxists are right, and you're wrong. Doesn't have anything to do with Marxism really, because there are three separate and unrelated questions at work here:
1) Is the global climate warming?
2) Is this due to human activity?
3) What steps should we take in response?
Clearly you don't like the answers to #3, but questions #1 and #2 are not dependent on #3.
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This is just some of that fake news the Republicans warned us about. Probably from that damned Barney Slanders.
Whoa, tough crowd here today.
Get a sense of humor, good people.
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@#&$ moderators can't take a joke.
Seriously. A pathetic lack of humor genes in some people. Wasting mod points on obvious jokes.