93% of the Great Barrier Reef is now damaged by coral bleaching

[Suppressed]

93% of the Great Barrier Reef is now damaged by coral bleaching
How could we let this happen?
FIONA MACDONALD | 20 APR 2016

A new survey has confirmed pretty much every environmentalist's worst fears, revealing that 93 percent of Australia's Great Barrier Reef has already been damaged by coral bleaching.

We just have to stop there for a second, because 93 percent!! That means there's now only 7 percent of this Natural Wonder of the World left intact thanks to rising water temperatures. How did we let it get this bad?

"We’ve never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before," said lead researcher Terry Hughes, who organised the National Coral Bleaching Taskforce that surveyed the reef. "In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it’s like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once."

The team has spent the past few weeks conducting aerial surveys of more than 911 individual reefs along the 2,300 km of the Great Barrier Reef, and found that only 68 of them (7 percent) had escaped bleaching. Teams of scientific divers also confirmed these results under the water.

So what does it mean to say the coral has become 'bleached'? Corals get their beautiful vibrant colour from tiny algae that live in their tissue and provide food in return for a home. But when water temperatures get too warm, the corals become stressed and eject the algae, which turns the coral bone white and also leaves them starving and vulnerable to destruction.

That looks just as devastating as you might imagine, as you can see in this recent WWF-Australia footage of the Great Barrier Reef. Guys, we really messed up:








EXCERPT.  Read more at http://www.sciencealert.com/93-of-the-great-barrier-reef-is-now-damaged-by-coral-bleaching

[Idaho_Cowboy]

So presuming it’s not caused by manmade global warming, do we have any ocean science buffs around to explain this to a dude who's never been closer to coral than the classic swimming fish screensaver?

[Idaho_Cowboy]

I guess I killed this thread in a hurry. Ouch.

[Suppressed]

I guess I killed this thread in a hurry. Ouch.

Well, you set conditions that precluded an answer, other than "extraordinary natural variation".

Fact is, the oceans have soaked up much of the effects of what we've pumped into the atmosphere.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Well, you set conditions that precluded an answer, other than "extraordinary natural variation".

Fact is, the oceans have soaked up much of the effects of what we've pumped into the atmosphere.

I've seen a lot of evidence that global warming doesn't exist, and if it exists isn't man made. Mark Stein has written some great work on the subject. There's more polar ice now then there used be etc. I'm not ready to count one reef as proof thus I'm wondering if anyone has other theories for the water in this area being warmer.

[XenaLee]

93% of the Great Barrier Reef is now damaged by coral bleaching
How could we let this happen?
FIONA MACDONALD | 20 APR 2016

A new survey has confirmed pretty much every environmentalist's worst fears, revealing that 93 percent of Australia's Great Barrier Reef has already been damaged by coral bleaching.

We just have to stop there for a second, because 93 percent!! That means there's now only 7 percent of this Natural Wonder of the World left intact thanks to rising water temperatures. How did we let it get this bad?

"We’ve never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before," said lead researcher Terry Hughes, who organised the National Coral Bleaching Taskforce that surveyed the reef. "In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it’s like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once."

The team has spent the past few weeks conducting aerial surveys of more than 911 individual reefs along the 2,300 km of the Great Barrier Reef, and found that only 68 of them (7 percent) had escaped bleaching. Teams of scientific divers also confirmed these results under the water.

So what does it mean to say the coral has become 'bleached'? Corals get their beautiful vibrant colour from tiny algae that live in their tissue and provide food in return for a home. But when water temperatures get too warm, the corals become stressed and eject the algae, which turns the coral bone white and also leaves them starving and vulnerable to destruction.

That looks just as devastating as you might imagine, as you can see in this recent WWF-Australia footage of the Great Barrier Reef. Guys, we really messed up:







EXCERPT.  Read more at http://www.sciencealert.com/93-of-the-great-barrier-reef-is-now-damaged-by-coral-bleaching

So.....I'm curious.  How, exactly, did ""we"" mess up?   Just because my personal control of the ocean water temperatures is temporarily on the blink, how is it my (our) fault?

[XenaLee]

Well, you set conditions that precluded an answer, other than "extraordinary natural variation".

Fact is, the oceans have soaked up much of the effects of what we've pumped into the atmosphere.

The oceans have always "soaked up" the effects of natural events on earth.  It would be rather asinine, not to mention false, of someone to try to pin that on anything "man-made" at this point. 

[Suppressed]

There's more polar ice now then there used be etc.

There's often greater extent of ice when it warms and thins, like molasses if you warm a griddle.  The key is volume.

Volume is far below what it used to be.  Here's Arctic sea ice volume info...
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/



Yes, there was a short-lived minor increase from about 2012-2014, but that's variation in an overall downward trend.

[Idiot]

Good grief man, you are only showing 36 years on your chart.  That is just a blip on the geological record.