The Red Sea's Coral Reefs Defy the Climate-Change Odds (nytimes.com) 18
As warming waters devastate coral around the world, the sea's stunningly colorful reefs have been remarkably resilient. But pollution, mass tourism and overfishing put them at risk. From a report: The vast majority of the world's coral reefs are likely to be severely damaged in the coming decades if the planet keeps warming at its current rate. But the wildly colorful coral reefs in the waters outside the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh, where the annual United Nations climate conference is taking place, are an anomaly: They can tolerate the heat, and perhaps even thrive in it, making them some of the only reefs in the world that have a chance of surviving climate change. There is a limit to how much they can take, however.
Mass tourism at Egypt's beach resorts, overfishing, overdevelopment, pollution, occasional failures of the sewage system, sediment from construction and oil spills from tankers or terminals have put them at risk, according to marine biologists who study the Red Sea. "If not the last, this could be one of the last coral refuges worldwide," said Dr. Mahmoud Hanafy, a marine biology professor at the Suez Canal University in Egypt. "Protection of this reef is not a national responsibility or a national task. It's a global task." The exquisite beauty of the more than 200 species of coral, living in crystal clear waters of the northern Red Sea in temperatures that can top 85 degrees Fahrenheit, has made the area a scuba diver's paradise. Throughout the two-week climate meeting, conference attendees -- including John Kerry, the United States climate envoy -- took a break from the conference halls to experience the corals for themselves.
Mass tourism at Egypt's beach resorts, overfishing, overdevelopment, pollution, occasional failures of the sewage system, sediment from construction and oil spills from tankers or terminals have put them at risk, according to marine biologists who study the Red Sea. "If not the last, this could be one of the last coral refuges worldwide," said Dr. Mahmoud Hanafy, a marine biology professor at the Suez Canal University in Egypt. "Protection of this reef is not a national responsibility or a national task. It's a global task." The exquisite beauty of the more than 200 species of coral, living in crystal clear waters of the northern Red Sea in temperatures that can top 85 degrees Fahrenheit, has made the area a scuba diver's paradise. Throughout the two-week climate meeting, conference attendees -- including John Kerry, the United States climate envoy -- took a break from the conference halls to experience the corals for themselves.
Stay Skeptical My Friends (Score:1, Informative)
"As warming waters devastate coral around the world"
Somebody could do with a dose of skepticism: https://www.aol.com/great-barr... [aol.com]
Yes, I understand this acts like a single data point (the Great Barrier Reef is actually multiple reefs, but whatever), but the GBR has always been used as The Exemplar for reef decay. If it is a good example for one side, the other side can claim the same.
Typical Msmash... (Score:3, Interesting)
But pollution, mass tourism and overfishing put them at risk.
So not warming and acidification, according to what the above clearly implies.
Does our resident illiterate/. "editor" not realize he/she/it just took a dump on the Official Approved Narrative??
note: before you AGW denialists grow stiffies, one should not be able to watch the sea levels rise noticeable during their lifetimes; I have.
Re: (Score:1)
>one should not be able to watch the sea levels rise noticeable during their lifetimes; I have.
Tides don't count
Any other change over the course of decades is virtually by definition not noticeable. When/where/how did you notice this?
Re: Typical Msmash... (Score:1)
Tides don't count.
No shit?
When/where/how did you notice this?
As I live and breathe - a reasonable fucking question. Here's your answer: thirty-five years' experience knowing what the [rocky] coastline on the border between Stamford and Darien should look like (that's Connecticunt, spelled with a "C").
And I learned how to sail at the age of eleven, so I know WTF tides and storm surge are.
Re: Typical Msmash... (Score:1)
*Go, Exxon!!!
Re: Typical Msmash... (Score:2)
Color me skeptical. Over the past 35 years, sea level has risen around 3 inches. That is not going to be noticeable, unless the land in the area is also subsiding.
It is more likely that you are observing erosion. Especially if people been dredging sand around there, or making other changes to the local conditions.
Re: Typical Msmash... (Score:1)
Denying Anthropogenic Global Warming (Score:2)
So have the aborigines of (what is now) Tasmania, when the tip of the peninsula became an island [deadlystory.com] thousands of years before the internal combustion engine was invented.
Perhaps, their shamans have also blamed their misdeeds — such as lightning too many fires — for the misfortune...
Strictly-speaking, we don't know, if it happened within one human liftetime (which h
it's almost like (Score:3, Insightful)
It's almost like...corals are one of the oldest forms of life on this planet, and can actually tolerate pretty significant climate events, having survived successfully through numerous mass extinctions.
Re: (Score:2)
So you're saying that shallow-sea corals opportunistically took advantage of particularly benign conditions? Duh? ...therefore not quite as irreplaceably precious as they're reported to be?
This would imply that they (like the Great Barrier Reef) are pretty dynamic and
If the conditions are good, they thrive and expand. If they aren't, they don't.
But what they don't do is go away or go extinct, as the breathless existential doomsayers suggest.
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/abo... [noaa.gov] says that Corals as an organism
Film at 11 (Score:2, Offtopic)
"People in the political-power 1% caste
use fossil fuels to fly 3,000 miles to sit in rooms
so they can take turns applauding each other's speeches
about destruction of corals due to fossil fuels and mass tourism.
They then 'take a break' to
go participate in coral tourism
before using fossil fuels to fly 3,000 miles
back home from their speech-giving conference,
as if they didn't just spend most of the past 3 years
legally forcing the proletariat to have family funerals and birthday parties and weddings via Zoom an
Odds (Score:2)
Odds are made by odds-makers. Not all of them are fair.
Maybe ... (Score:3)
I used to snorkel regularly in the Red Sea. ...
Yes, the corals are beautiful, and more so in unfrequented beaches
I don't know if this is a factor or not, but the Red Sea is extremely deep.
The average depth is 500 meters, with trenches that are 3 km deep.
Maybe this voluminous mass of water heats up slower than other areas?
Re: (Score:1)
How can you be certain of their demise ... (Score:2)
... when you didn't expect them to thrive? Clearly there is a gap in understanding the subject no?
Typical biology. It isn't a science, it's an observational exercise done by people with little understanding of the sciences needed for that observation (math, statistics) and little understanding of the true nature of the things they observe. Should people do biology, sure. Should biologists make predictions ... hell no.