Well, some of it is.

Corals are critters. If we had an Environment board this would be plastered all over it. So we do not, in cold hard fact, have an environment board. We have, it seems, an irrelevant MRB for crap.


Quote:

‘Most of it was dead’: scientists discover one of Great Barrier Reef’s worst coral bleaching events Analysis of high-resolution drone imagery concludes 97% of corals died at a Lizard Island reef between March and June this year

Apparently lees thinks one researcher is biased and wrong or something. This researcher not involved here.


Quote:

‘Most of it was dead’: scientists discover one of Great Barrier Reef’s worst coral bleaching events Analysis of high-resolution drone imagery concludes 97% of corals died at a Lizard Island reef between March and June this year At least 97% of corals on a reef in the Great Barrier Reef’s north died during one of the worst coral bleaching events the world’s biggest reef system has ever seen, according to new analysis. Scientists at several institutions used high-resolution drone imagery to track the bleaching and death of corals on a reef at Lizard Island.

Last summer not that hot despite the El Nino in place then.


Quote:

“We came out of the water and didn’t know what to say. It’s an iconic reef and most of it was dead.” A/Prof Karen Joyce, of James Cook University, said she had been mapping coral for 25 years. “It’s devastating to say that this year, my job became so much easier. In the small area we analysed, instead of many thousand live corals, I can count the few remaining on my fingers.” Dr Lyle Vail, the director of the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station, said until this summer the reef at North Point was “truly amazing” and had recovered well from a major bleaching event in 2016. “It’s pretty heartbreaking to lose all that coral recovery,” he said. I weep for the corals, but what I saw on the Great Barrier Reef gives me hope Read more In a journal this week, scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, James Cook University and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority released research showing corals were now getting less time to recover from cyclones, bleaching and outbreaks of native coral-eating starfish. After looking at the results of coral monitoring trips across 131 reefs over more than 30 years, the scientists found the number of reefs hit by disturbances had gone up from 6% in the 1980s to 44% in the 2010s. The frequency of coral bleaching had increased between 19% and 38% a year, and cyclone damage had also risen slightly, “resulting in less time for recovery”. “These results confirm that climate change is contributing to ecosystem-wide changes in the ability of coral reefs to recover,” the research said.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/26/most-of-it-was-dead-scientists-discovers-one-of-great-barrier-reefs-worst-coral-bleaching-events

Earlier today the so–called Mod of Environment was reduced to begging “Please FD, move this topic to Environment!”

Similarly, TVI™ was ignorant of significant bleaching of part of the northern GBR.

Fucking useless is TVI™ as Mod of Environment. Time for him to step down or, if he stubbornly resists that, time for FD to boot him as Mod of Environment. Future of OZPol rests on that.

Sad Kangaroo be a great Environment Mod!

He analysed the reality behind Dutton’s nuclear crap, TVI™ certainly did nothing like it.

Quote:

Coral bleaching is a serious and widespread problem, with two global bleaching events in the past decade. But it’s only going to get worse if we don’t rapidly curb greenhouse gas emissions. New research using supercomputing to process daily data on sea surface temperatures around the world has produced grim projections: coral bleaching due to marine heatwaves is set to become more common. By 2080 it will start in spring rather than summer, and will last longer into autumn. This means bleaching will start to affect the annual mass coral spawning in spring, which could lead to large-scale coral loss. As Camille Mellin and Damien Fordham explain, the risk of coral bleaching will be greatest near the Equator, which is where the most biodiverse coral reefs are found. These are also the regions where people rely most heavily on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods. The upside of the research is that it also identifies areas of lower bleaching risk. These coral “havens” can become the focus of strategies to conserve coral species and help maximise their adaptation to climate change. In the shorter term, there are grave fears for the Great Barrier Reef following last summer’s mass bleaching, after new drone imagery emerged showing 97% of coral at a reef off Lizard Island has died. As Jane Williamson writes, Australia must act immediately to prevent more coral deaths if it wants to preserve this natural wonder.

—The Conversation email

Detailed: https://theconversation.com/devastating-coral-bleaching-will-be-more-common-start-earlier-and-last-longer-unless-we-cut-emissions-232473

The Great Barrier Reef will rebuild. It always does.

Maybe, Unsub, maybe.

Oceans are heating up so what “used to happen” may no longer happen.

The other thing is that only some types of coral might survive the higher heat regime and those not the kind of corals that build the ecosystem that sees fish and molluscs etc return.

Another article I posted not all that long ago talked about just that aspect. The corals that return don’t build the reefs and if reefs are not always built up the reef will disappear—mechanical damage from waves etc will largely destroy the reef.

From my research, oceans are heating up near the polar regions. That is what the big concern would be. The GBR has had the same ocean temps since time immemorial.

Not really, that is why we get the big bleaching events.

All we can do, given that we will not take AGW seriously yet, is breed corals in tanks so we can “reseed” the GBR after a serious bleaching/coral dying event. How feasible this is on a big scale I don’t know.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jun 28^th, 2024 at 7:55am:

Not really, that is why we get the big bleaching events. All we can do, given that we will not take AGW seriously yet, is breed corals in tanks so we can “reseed” the GBR after a serious bleaching/coral dying event. How feasible this is on a big scale I don’t know.

It is very feasible. I wrote on another topic to do with the GBRMP that the efficiency of regrowth of coral reefs is quite good. There was a 400% increase in coral recovery between the years 1990 and 1995, according to the photos that the tourist centre on either Green Island or Magnetic Island showed.

We are just going to have to endure weather events that harm our reef, and at least try to do something about reducing pollution, crown of thorns, overfishing, reduce shipping in the area, and stop shark culling.

If we lose the reef, erosions of beaches along the Qld coast will be exacerbated.

Yes, we can’t control the weather.

Climate is warming, hot water causing bleaching/coral death getting both worse and more frequent.

While coral may recover, it may not be the desirable corals, once that build the reef and sustain a healthy, diverse marine environment that recover.

Breeding/reseeding likely will become permanent and more necessary.