Sunday, January 21, 2018

Tales From the Coral Reefs



In our age, coral reefs are the canary in the coal mine. Tim Radford writes:

Forty years ago, the world’s coral reefs faced a known risk: every 25 or 30 years, ocean temperatures would rise to intolerable levels.
Corals would minimise the risk of death by everting the algae with which they lived in symbiotic partnership: that is, the reef animals would avoid death by getting rid of the algae, deliberately weakening themselves.
This response is known as bleaching, and it can have a catastrophic effect on other life on the reef. In the Pacific such episodes were sometimes linked to cycles of ocean warming known as an El Niño event.
By 2018 the odds had altered. Coral reefs now face this hazard every six years. That is, in four decades of global warming and climate change, the risks have multiplied fivefold.

We still have not got used to the fact that climate change sets up a series of geometrical progressions. The longer we refuse to do something about it, the faster catastrophe approaches. Consider the following study from James Cook University:

Before the 1980s, mass bleaching of corals was unheard of, even during strong El Niño conditions, but now repeated bouts of regional-scale bleaching and mass mortality of corals has become the new normal around the world as temperatures continue to rise,” said Terry Hughes, who directs Australia’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
He and colleagues report in the journal Science that they analysed data from bleaching events at 100 locations around the planet between 1980 and 2016. Bleaching events are a fact of life for corals: these little creatures tend to live best in temperatures near the upper limit of their tolerance levels, and respond to extreme events by rejecting the algae that normally provide the nutrients they need.
But as global air temperatures have increased, in response to profligate burning of fossil fuels that increase greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, so have sea temperatures. And Professor Hughes and his team report that in the last two years more than a third of all bleaching events have been “severe,” extending over hundreds of kilometres.

Disaster is no longer inching its way toward us. It's galloping our way. And we close our eyes.

Image: Green Left Weekly

28 comments:

Lorne said...

It's almost as if humanity has a collective death wish, Owen. Either that, or we believe that we are somehow to be exempted from nature's responses to our heedlessness.

Toby said...

Acceleration is the word. Think compound interest. The tough part is that the majority of people will not know what is happening until it is way too late and then they will be angry that no one told them, no one did anything to stop it.

THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO YOU'LL EVER SEE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOykY2SMbZ0

You have probably seen this video, Owen, but it details the problem of exponential growth which is at the root of so many big problems.

Owen Gray said...

We have lived for awhile with the myth that our technology allows us to control nature, Lorne. That notion -- as fires, floods and hurricanes should tell us -- is absolute folly.

Steve said...

Just as I refuse to believe that the US did not know Iraq had both Sunni and Shia, I refuse to believe that the billionaires funding the denial of man made global warming to not have a plan b. Maybe global warming is their plan A?

Owen Gray said...

A terrific video, Toby -- which makes it easy to understand the crisis we're facing.

Owen Gray said...

Are you suggesting that global catastrophe is in their long term self interest, Steve?

Steve said...

Its an ongoing meme of megalomania, normally the province of Bond Villains. Recently nicely dramatized by the Last Ship, and Margaret Atwoods Crake and Onyx.

However in light of contradictory evidence its not a implausible assumption.


Returning to the Garden of Eden.

Owen Gray said...

Megolomania certainly fits the current occupant of the White House, Steve.

the salamander said...

.. we spend approx 2-4 hours daily when visiting the Turks & Caicos Islands.. seeking out coral reefs we can walk to.. and swim into (ok, we also spend 3-6 hours, eating local seafood and drinking the local beer and rum) We've been doing this for quite a while.. and I always have a waterproof camera attached to my right wrist. Thus we've discovered many shallow water reefs.. ie 2-12 depth.. and we will often visit the barrier reefs offshore a mile or more.. when the tides are right, via a boat.. So far so good.. the deterioration is predominantly hurricane created.. silting and wave action.. but we also see it from too much tourist pressure thrashing around on the shallows.

Woe betide tourists attempting to take conch or coral home.. unless its obviously old & weathered or retail tourism level souvenir.. or trying to bring in lobster out of season. Verbotten ! A great way to miss your flight as Immigration agents seize your passport. The entire island of 'Provo' (Providentiales) is seen as a national treasure.. a marine preserve. And to say tourism is the basis of the economy.. as is the fishing industry would be unmistakeable truth.

Why can't Canada wake up to such obvious realities.. or the USA ? Any Canadian who has been to Newfoundland, or BC or the Great Lakes.. the St Lawrence (and I could go on forever) should recognize the intrinsics of recreation, tourism, fishing sheer wonders.. of our environment, lands, habitat and species. Yes Canada has coral. Yes we have riches in the seas, the inland waters, the forests, hell even in our inner city ravines or tiny urban woodlots.

But 'politicians' to a great extent are blind to all this treasure.. Its always about the votes, the economy, the jobs.. but not really the jobs related to the natural splendour.. its about jobs related to resource extraction and export.. or the stock markets, or take out food and drive through.. I truly become wickedly mean about this kind of screwed up error & greed. I become unable to remain silent. So the plight of coral in our lifetimes becomes paramount.. The killing of the canary in the coal mine makes me furious, the killing of our last whales for 'scientific research' by the Japanese, the killing of rhino for some mythical erotic dick hardener.. or bear parts etc.. leave me howling mad.

I think of this stuff with every breath while snorkeling.. my eyes drinking in the natural bounty.. just as driving or hiking in the Rockies astonishes me.. To see moose grazing in the shallows, is poetry, promise and religion, all in one.. Damn but this stuff fires me up !

Owen Gray said...

As you should, sal. Our native peoples have always known that we live within nature. When we try to dominate it, we destroy it -- and we destroy ourselves.

Steve said...

I live about a klick from Lake Erie. It used to support the largest freshwater fishing fleet in the world. Now they tell you not to eat the fish if your pregnant.

Owen Gray said...

The saga of what has happened to Lake Erie is truly tragic, Steve.

opit said...

I used to haunt a disaster-flogging site known as Desmedoma Despair. It was depressing. I also have been a member of Care 2 for years now. I started there because they have reports from all over on environmental news and the travesty of man's disregard for the environment. But : I also learned there was what you might call 'eco alarmism' going on. Global warming /climate change is at the forefront. Yet I am complacent to some degree. Why ? Likely the same reason I don't take astrologers and soothsayers seriously. There is no way to validate predictions about the future. BTW The most popular supposed victim of AGW is the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. As it happens, it is reported there are cycles where sea level is lowered ( ! ) exposing coral to the air. Note also that that reef is relatively cold. Corals love heat !

Owen Gray said...

Climate scientists don't deny the cycles, opit. But they say the cycles are speeding up, so recovery time is shortened. And that means destruction of habitat. Polar bears can swim; but there is significantly less ice for them to wander around on.

opit said...

:) I have pages of links suggesting that 'climate science' is funded to buttress the suppositions made going in the door, leaving people willing to consider alternatives to disaster scenarios to be mocked as 'deniers', ' warmists' ( Dr. Roger A. Pielke comes to mind ) and constrained by religious views ( when did Man become so powerful as to regulate Creation ? ) The arguments against keeping an open mind are no less vociferous than when the Church imprisoned Galileo ; which is why the whole argument is treated as an assault on the religious doctrine of "The Church of Global Warming". Newspaper articles have been positing weather disaster scenarios well over a century. That makes them propaganda - not Proof. But the Appeal to Authority is endless, and 'anti-science' becomes the need to keep an open mind rather than not being closed to alternatives. What a travesty mocking Scientific Method, which opens dialogue to all comers....while still being perfectly capable of mocking others' views. That being the whole argument is hollow as hollow can be.

Owen Gray said...

The evidence in peer reviewed journals seems pretty conclusive, opit. And the increasing extremes in whether seems to underline the conclusion that our climate changing -- and not for the better.

opit said...

Peer review is just another argument against accepting the challenge. I reiterate : there is and can be no data from the future - which obviously has not happened. Dr. Roger A. Pielke Sr. was one of the older commenters on the problems of successfully modeling the future because when he tried to forecast the snow pack in the High Sierras, the models would break down unpredictably. Weathermen have exactly the same difficulty with rounding errors, coarseness of the models ( including storm action ), and just computing capacity. The problem is not that one should 'deny climate science' so much as "Why should I take it seriously when it cannot be verified ?" You know when action on the Sun on the bottom of the ocean becomes a thing that excuses for inaccuracies have progressed to entirely ludicrous.
If you have any interest in surveying active discussion on the topic rather than relying on reports of what 'authorities' think, I recommend a look at the original posts of science presenter JoNova, who was convinced by her husband to take another look at what seemed crazy representations.
Crazy is as crazy does. It gets as bad as the cartoon of an ostrich hiding its head in the sand so as to avoid seeing an unpredictable world.
Not even meteorological reports escape perversion. Dr. Jennifer Maharonesay tells about 'correction factors' used to putatively 'fix' erroneous raw data, which then becomes unavailable. Yet these 'corrections' dwarf the supposed 'problem'. What a farce !

Owen Gray said...

It depends on who you consider an authority, opit. I've seen no reason to disbelieve the conclusions of Dr. James Hansen.

opit said...

That's the problem. With due respect to the revered Dr. Hansen, I see no person on the planet as an authority on the workings of a system so chaotic that weather forecasters cannot predict past a week with some semblance of accuracy. Why then would I respect the foundations of a static model which ignores much more than it calculates and is dependent on averaging variables collected from relatively scattered locations with limitations on historic accuracy to plot trends ? And these are land temperatures on a water world to a large extent. If you insist on judging an argument by the respectability of its proponents rather than if it makes any sense, are you aware that both of the first two directors of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia are labeled 'deniers' ? I find it hard to believe anyone who worked there ( Hansen ) could be unaware of this.
Weathermen were so decried as 'deniers' that their assessment was strenuously objected to and they were required to be quiet on the topic. Their jobs also became hostage to their public pronouncements.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/02/13/why-weather-forecasters-question-climate-science/h93iEPs3YSwxPLJ58gWCxJ/story.html
There is a difference between rebutting an argument and sputtering in outrage.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/bill-nye-cnn-climate-change_us_57bd1be4e4b0b51733a6a804
Yet all this is supposed to occur in an arena of 'settled science' and near unanimous agreement. The dichotomy burns. Atmospheric scientists from NASA were so incensed they set up a group to challenge 'authority' - but finding anything about "Right Stuff" can be a chore swamped by space program trivia and movie credits. Over 30,000 scientists ) Many of whom have PhDs ) signed an online petition ( The Petition Project ) disputing any claim to certainty about the future....but they too were maligned as sellouts to industry.
Perhaps the most incisive easily available thoughts were those of the late John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K56fms2VZTc is only one of his posts.

Owen Gray said...

I choose Hansen, opit. You choose Coleman. Who you going to believe? I suppose the debate will never be fully settled. But from where I sit -- in eastern Ontario -- and from where my sister sits -- in southern California -- Hansen makes more sense.

Thanks for the links.

opit said...

:) I won't go so far as to say I 'believe' any of them. My science teachers were quick to point up how many times man's concept of the way our world was ordered changed in the past - and presumably would again. Nope. Belief is for religion. But my latest read is typical of people who appreciate man is not possessed of infinite wisdom . That is a very scientific attitude BTW. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/22/claim-climate-sensitivity-narrowed-to-2-8c/comment-page-1/#comment-2726615 The comments thread is what I look for in any article. Are they self congratulatory and stultifying or alive with examining possibilities ?

Owen Gray said...

Given that life itself is an evolutionary process, opit, the evidence is never completely conclusive. However, it strikes me that the preponderance of evidece is increasingly on the side of climate change.

opit said...

https://oldephartte.livejournal.com/57844.html made me laugh. The previous post is less dramatic, but perhaps more sensible.

Owen Gray said...

One thing is true, opit. Past civilizations have collapsed -- for a number of reasons.

opit said...

Easter Island is a classic of that kind. In fact, it is typical of empire to suffer deforestation and fuel poverty.
Globally then, an assault on the independence of nations to secure their resources is typical of corporatist tactics. UN monetizing 'carbon sequestration' away from land use control by occupying farmers, natives, or local government in time for the increased energy need would be a coup for energy monopolists. The poor would freeze in the dark should a mini ice age coincide again with a reduced sunspot cycle.
'Green' power has this nasty habit of not being a reliable or sufficient utility. Solar heat in the dead of an ordinary Canadian winter is not a reassuring concept, let alone in a time when the dead of winter takes on its historic significance.
I have yet to understand how taxing energy use does anything but restrict access to supply. After all, fossil fuels are merely a finite resource driving current prosperity. The alternative is dire and eventually inevitable.
Climate change ? It has and will.

Owen Gray said...

True, opit. It has and will. The ultimate question then is, how to we -- collectively -- do something about it. The Montreal Protocol was a success. This time around, the problem is much bigger and has more heads.

opit said...

Obviously you do not either read or heed the information I have posted. The alleged problem is exactly that and no more : alleged. "The future is not ours to see, que sera, sera."
I do not pay attention to questions about how do I explain conformity of information or peer review. There is no data.
The public 'forum' is obviously affected by simple things like Search results biased to politically correct answers and by online presenters obstinately clinging to fact free opinions. Such are an Echo Chamber soliciting conformity over independent thought.
I'll shut up now as I might as well talk to a wall.

Owen Gray said...

I fundamentally disagree with you, opit. If you interpret that as talking to a wall, so be it. But I do agree with you on one point: let's end this conversation.