20% of coral reefs dead

[Hank49]

Those flippin' Crown-of-Thorns aren't helping things in the Indo-Pacific. Of course, we think the starfish are going nuts due to people overharvesting their main predators, trumpet snails.

Is it possible that the unusual high numbers of Crown of Thorns are merely indicators of unhealthy reefs, and not the cause? I was present when a huge mass of them consumed what was left of the reef in Boracay in 1999 but the reef had already bleached on the west side of the island and most corals were dead or weak. The other side of the island however, had no bleaching, possibly due to deeper, cooler water moving through with the tides and the C of T's movement stopped where the healthy coral started. This seemed to indicate that healthy reefs have more than one mechanism for keeping them in check.

As for global warming...who knows? The temperature change going into or away from an ice age may not be a straight linear line. It could likely have blips up and down as it steadily increases or decreases over a 20,000 year period and given the small amount of time man has been recording global temperatures it seems we have insufficient data to draw a conclusion. Hank

 

[Boogie711]

...and given the small amount of time man has been recording global temperatures it seems we have insufficient data to draw a conclusion. Hank

AMEN!

 

[drbill]

AMEN!

One does not need to rely strictly on human-recorded temperatures. There are natural temperature "databases" out there with varying temporal resolutions.

Any response to my previous comments, Boogie711?

Dr. Bill

 

[Hank49]

One does not need to rely strictly on human-recorded temperatures. There are natural temperature "databases" out there with varying temporal resolutions.

Any response to my previous comments, Boogie711?

Dr. Bill

I'm not saying it's warming or cooling. But there is evidence for both sides to argue their points. Long term warming, short term, catastrophic events which can reverse the trends... http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/1395/

 

[archman]

Is it possible that the unusual high numbers of Crown of Thorns are merely indicators of unhealthy reefs, and not the cause? I was present when a huge mass of them consumed what was left of the reef in Boracay in 1999 but the reef had already bleached on the west side of the island and most corals were dead or weak. The other side of the island however, had no bleaching, possibly due to deeper, cooler water moving through with the tides and the C of T's movement stopped where the healthy coral started. This seemed to indicate that healthy reefs have more than one mechanism for keeping them in check.

I have heard reports that Acanthaster is capable of significant absorptive nutrition, and that they "do better" in eutrophic waters. If that's true, than reefs damaged by increased river/sewage runoff would also foster Acanthaster growth, as well as the algae. Many echinoderms can feed this way, so it would not surprise me. It's one of the main reasons the urchins in LA harbor are do dense.

As for global warming...who knows? The temperature change going into or away from an ice age may not be a straight linear line. It could likely have blips up and down as it steadily increases or decreases over a 20,000 year period and given the small amount of time man has been recording global temperatures it seems we have insufficient data to draw a conclusion. Hank

Unfortunately, the only way to validate the "blip" model would be to monitor the environment for several thousand more years. And when/if validated, it does nothing more than give a better indicator as to cause.
The science crowd is moving away from this argument altogether, as it doesn't really solve any current problems. It's simply an argument to do nothing. Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do, as nature tends to clean up messes far better (and cheaper) than people. A lot of wetlands restoration works this way. But rising sea temperatures don't appear to be being mitigated by mother nature. On the contrary, rising air and sea temperatures are contributing to widespread ecological and climate damage all over the globe. Thus the science-crowd focus is shifting less and less towards "who-dun-it" and more towards methods to slow or stop warming trends. Even if it's a natural blip, it's still pretty bad. I have seen very few articles predicting a natural cooling down period happening anytime soon. Rather, the climate modelers and water chemistry folks are becoming increasingly alarmed with their data. I won't even mention the predictions from the physical oceanographers.

The Russians are thrilled. They finally are getting their Northwest Passage. Henry Hudson must be cussing in his grave.

Hurricane season should be quite bad too, unless by luck the things don't hit any populated areas. My insurance carrier has a nice graph showing how hurricane-related claims are on a massive upswing the last decade. They have records since the 1960's.

 

[Hank49]

http://www.globalclimate.org/Newsweek.htm

This is an aritcle in Newsweek from the 70s. There are lots of articles about global cooling
Unfortunately the science community is not always objective and can tend to be very trendy. And the studies proposed for the sake of science are most times approved by scientists for scientists. This is how most generate projects that pay their salaries. I think it's very worthwhile observing and recording data but knee jerk reactions are not the solution, especially when it mainly serves to line the pockets of high profile "environmentalists".
Minimize pollution for our health. Obviously toxic substances in our food chain isn't good. But we know relatively nothing of our origin, our planet, how long we've been here, where we're going.....
I'm a farmer. I try to study nature and make this production factory like. And every time I think I have it figured out, Nature throws me another curve and says, "oh yeah?" :confused4

 

[Boogie711]

Destructive fishing practices and [direct] "human interference" cannot explain the decline in coral reef health across the globe, and as Archman points out in areas where direct human impacts are negligible.

There have to be larger scales forces at work here and global warming certainly seems a likely piece of the puzzle.

Dr. Bill

OK Bill - you asked for comments.

Where should I begin... as you may be aware, the international scientific community has been thrust into a debate on the merits of the science itself. The controversy lies over the “Hockey Stick Model” which claims to plot global temperatures back 1,000 years. The line is more or less flat until about 1900, when it starts to curve sharply upward, forming the blade of the hockey stick – and the core justification for the Kyoto Protocol.

But scientists Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre have proven that the mathematical model was flawed. Their case proving that the hockey stick is nothing more than junk science has been published in “Geophysical Research” – a well respected scientific journal – giving researchers a legitimate platform to debunk the original Kyoto model.

The comments on 'human interference' are interesting. Admittedly out of context, you may be interested to know that the Mount Pinatubo explosion in 1990 created more Carbon Dioxide emissions than over 100 YEARS of human based emissions. Clearly, human based GHG emissions are not the problem. In fact, everyone is running around hysterical about GHG in the troposphere - did you know that only about 0.03 percent of the Earth's atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide? Nitrogen, oxygen, and argon constitute about 78 percent, 20 percent, and 0.93 percent, respectively.

Does global warming exist? MAYBE.

Is it human caused? No.

Is there anything we can therefore do about it? No.

Should we be spending money or implementing protocols to prevent it? Considering that they're as effective as spending millions of dollars to install a toilet paper barrier around Los Angeles to prevent a Tsunami disaster, I'd say no.

 

[archman]

McKitrick and McIntyre's study is not the smoking gun it was previously. Their analysis is being picked apart now much how they themselves picked apart Mann's 1998 study.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11

There have been several newer studies out that indicate both pro's and con's of both camps' work. But this always happens during stringent peer review. Currently there is no global warming flavor of the week. In the case of the "Mann vs. McKitrick and McIntyre" debacle (not a pretty spectacle to behold), Mann has been cleaning up his shoddy statistics models, and M&M are fast trying to become qualified experts on climate change (which neither is, professionally). They both continue to yell at each other quite a lot, and there are little camps of extremist followers closely catering to each, and blogging up the internet.

The hockey-stick model has a great deal of viewership to the general public (no thanks to the U.N.), but it's merely one cog in the wheel of ongoing climate studies. There is a great deal of misconception going around where people are stating that global warming isn't happening, because "Mann's hockey-stick graph has been refuted". There is certainly far more going on than just Mann's study. Some work supports global warming, some doesn't. Most work supports it now. It's the manmade factor that's problematic.

As for CO2, yes there is a great deal of conflict in much of the atmospheric-based studies. But it's the water column that's key here, as all it takes is small changes in dissolved CO2 content to create pH imbalances. The oceans are also where all the "missing CO2" has been discovered of late. This is what happens when oceanographers don't communicate with climatologists... we've known about carbon sequestering in oceanic basins for decades.

Volcanic eruptions do funny things to global climate... they lower global air temperatures. When all that sulfur dioxide gets blasted up into the stratosphere, they go into aerosol form and block sunlight from getting to Earth. This can last years.
There seems to be a negative feedback regarding volcanoes and climate change, whereby the effects of greenhouse gases released are counterbalanced by the sulfur dioxide cooling processes.

... And here's what increased CO2 entrainment in the water column is theorized to do to corals...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3605908.stm

This data is based in part from the findings from a colossal 9-year water sampling program that wrapped up in 1998. Folks in our Geosciences College still won't shut up about it. And to think, just a few years back people (me included) were seriously questioning the costs of all those bloody JGOFS expeditions.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-04zz.html

I recall recent reports stating that general oceanic pH has dropped by 0.1 over the last century, which doesn't sound like much unless you understand ocean water chemistry. Minute changes reduce buffering capability significantly. For people that keep live coral in aquaria, you understand this all too well. There's a ton of studies kicking into gear right now to look for actual effects on marine ecosystems... there isn't much data available at present to look at, other than theoretical models. But the most recent consensus on ocean pH is that it likely never deviated more than 0.7 since the late Paleozoic, except during global cataclysmic events. There are some questions regarding whether or not pH levels during Cenozoic glacial periods were higher than during interglacial periods (like we're in now); resolvement of this will provide a great deal of support for/against manmade effects. The oceans have been seen to have a remarkable ability to save our bacon from all sorts of nasty environmental problems, and it's likely they'll continue to do for quite some time. But this pH thing is scarier than most issues, and nobody wants to see coral poop out because of CaCO3 uptake limitations. That's not an easy fix relative to direct manmade impacts on tropical reefs (not like cleaning up sewage is easy either). But it'll keep the chemical and geological oceanographers employed for the next decade, bleah!

I hate chemistry.

 

[saildiver]

OK Bill - you asked for comments.

Where should I begin... as you may be aware, the international scientific community has been thrust into a debate on the merits of the science itself. The controversy lies over the “Hockey Stick Model” which claims to plot global temperatures back 1,000 years. The line is more or less flat until about 1900, when it starts to curve sharply upward, forming the blade of the hockey stick – and the core justification for the Kyoto Protocol.

But scientists Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre have proven that the mathematical model was flawed. Their case proving that the hockey stick is nothing more than junk science has been published in “Geophysical Research” – a well respected scientific journal – giving researchers a legitimate platform to debunk the original Kyoto model.

The comments on 'human interference' are interesting. Admittedly out of context, you may be interested to know that the Mount Pinatubo explosion in 1990 created more Carbon Dioxide emissions than over 100 YEARS of human based emissions. Clearly, human based GHG emissions are not the problem. In fact, everyone is running around hysterical about GHG in the troposphere - did you know that only about 0.03 percent of the Earth's atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide? Nitrogen, oxygen, and argon constitute about 78 percent, 20 percent, and 0.93 percent, respectively.

Does global warming exist? MAYBE.

Is it human caused? No.

Is there anything we can therefore do about it? No.

Should we be spending money or implementing protocols to prevent it? Considering that they're as effective as spending millions of dollars to install a toilet paper barrier around Los Angeles to prevent a Tsunami disaster, I'd say no.

Yes we should start doing something....fast-at least not make it any worse...I don't believe that all the scientists are involved in a left wing conspiracy who are of the opinion that global warming is a very real probability. Though it is interesting that most of the scientists on the other side have to be drug out by the administration to disprove it. This is like saying that the oceans aren't becoming depleted of fish,that the earth's population isn't reaching a mass that is creating all kinds of pressures on the planet that weren't there 200 years agoetc....the problem is that all the above problems face ecomomic politics-that is, to solve them, certain very rich people would have to settle for less for a while-and they just won't agree to do that-and my friends, most of those very rich people live in these United States...its going to be a long uphill battle-don't give up-just know who you're fighting....Peace...Saildiver

 

[drbill]

Archman beat me to it with a great response. Since it is approaching midnight, I'll let it rest at that.

Dr. Bill