A little help please!

[tullulah]

Hi there!

My name is Lisa Bushnell; I am a Bachelor degree student at Bournemouth University UK studying Tourism Management, I also hold my PADI Open Water Dive certificate and am now progressing onto my Open Water Advanced certificate.
As a 4^th year student at university I am now carrying out my research for my dissertation titled: ‘A Critical Evaluation of Climate Change and the Impacts on the Scuba Diving Industry and its Host Destinations’. I would really appreciate some thoughts and experiences on destinations that you have dived by filling out my short questionnaire.
If anyone is interested in helping me please click on the link below.
http://kwiksurveys.com?s=OBIHIF_4b6ec915
Kind Regards
Lisa

 

[smellzlikefish]

Hi Lisa- After taking your survey I believe your study is fundamentally flawed with far too many variables that you haven't controlled for. What do your teachers say?

I found most of the questions were biased toward forcing me to admit that I've seen the effects of climate change with my own eyes. With global warming happening at something like a tenth of a degree every year, it is unlikely that anyone has noticed a temperature change in the water that wasn't more related to runoff or natural fluctuations.

While I have seen the odd coral head bleached out, I have no way of knowing for sure if the colony death was the result of warming, COT predation, FW runoff, or disease, so attributing the bleaching that I have witnessed to any of those would be purely speculation and certainly not appropriate data for a thesis. Due to the isolated nature of the bleachings, I would guess they were more likely victim of a natural Crown of Thorns attack.

The same applies to observations in sea life fluctuations. Populations of animals fluctuate naturally on year-to year and even decade-to-decade time scales. So again, assuming that any change in biodiversity or biomass is a result of climate change is a huge leap of faith.