bad news for coral lovers

[bermudaskink]

http://www.theecologist.org/archive_article.html?article=138&category=34


don't cry! think of what you and others can do to help! Conserve energy, write to your local MP about lowering the CO2 emissions in your area. Stop dirving your car so much. There ar elots of thing we can do to try and help!

Watch out for your boyancy in the water and for that of others too! We need to give the reefs a chance to survive this! So be nice to corals when diving. Don't touch them, just admire them!

 

[pdoege]

And it isn't being done by clumsy divers.

Rising water temperatures will probably destroy most of the world's reefs in about 13 years. The reefs directly house 65% of the ocean's fish.

The ripple through the food chain will be enormous and may very well destroy commercial and recreation fishing.

You can kiss those carniverous sea birds goodbye. Ditto turtles.

The increased beach erosion isn't going to be pretty either.

There is nothing that any one person in any one country can do to prevent this.

Kyoto was a brave attempt, but it looks pretty dead now.

If it makes you feel any better, nature will fix this on her own.

First, an ice age lasting around 10,000 years. Then about 2 million years to rebuild the reefs.

Peter
(Just a bit cynical today)
(PS. I met the guy who has the patent on rebuilding reefs. He can't get the $2M he needs to start up a reef factory. I've decided to start a lobbying campaign. Yet another valiant attempt doomed to failure.)

 

[bermudaskink]

best not make the situation any worse - corals have enough to deal with without novice divers trampling all over them....

also - coral bleaching will contintue to happen but if we can try and avoid the earth becoming as hot as it is predicted to heat up to, then that might save SOME corals.

Saying "it's gonna happen anyway, so get used to it" is a cop out.

If everyone did a little something to help - we could make a big difference.

"Even if you only throw one starfish back in the water.... and all the others die. For that one starfish - you made a difference!!"

"Be the change you want to see in the world"

-Ghandi-

 

[FredT]

1. Kyoto is/was a farce. CO and CO2 emissions from two of the countries exempted from controls exceeds all North American emisssions combined. This is a "blame them" issue, not a "stop warming" (which may or may not be happening) issue.

2. EVERY 'hard coral' reef in the world is less than 15,000 years old! At that point the Ocean's water level was at least 250' below current levels. Coral does NOT grow in air. Most live coral colonies are less than 10,000 years old

See time line here:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/abrupt.html

 

[pdoege]

GBR is around 600,000 years old

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1349070.stm

Reefs in general are 100,000s of years old.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0714_030714_hawaiicoral.html

I did not find any actual age data at the link that FredT provided.

I did find very young age data at a supposedly Christian site that was trying to push a literal translation of Genesis. This appears to be junk science and propaganda.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1224.asp

Peter

 

[pdoege]

Just a couple thousand years old. I don't know if the info is accurate, but is published by the Florida Dept. of State.

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/habitats/coral.htm

Peter

 

[bermudaskink]

I didn't really see what FredT's point was anyway so I just ignored it.

:mean:

 

[pdoege]

in that a few thousand years is much less than a few million years.

However, any amount of time over say 100 years is longer than my lifespan.

Hell, if the reefs die out in 13 years and take a mere 1,000 years to regrow, then my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will be able to enjoy them again.

That is a long frickin time.

Peter

 

[Boogie711]

just ignore it.

The fact is, the explosion of Mount Pinatubo released more Greenhouse Gases than over 100 years of manmade production.

Please tell me how reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is going to help Coral Reefs?

That's right - it won't.

According to the makers of the Kyoto protocol itself, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, full implementation of the Kyoto protocol MAY SLOW down the natural cycle of the earths gradual warming and cooling, by as much as...

as much as...

as much as TWO FULL DEGREE'S in over 100 years. In other words, full implementation will mean that a Bangladeshi farmer who has to move his farm because of flooding in 96 years will now have to move his farm due to flooding in 101 years.

Yet full implementation will cost as much as $500 billion dollars per year in lost productivity - and countries like China, Mexico and India don't even have to participate. With that $500 billion, you can deliver clean drinking water for ever single citizen on earth.

And then next year you could do it again. And the next year you could do it again.

Gee - I have an idea. Why don't we just ignore science and resort to emotion instead, and implement the Kyoto protocol. Well, we could spend billions of dollars actually choosing to FIX the problem, but this will be more fun, right?

Geez.

 

[FredT]

1. Koyoto could not have halted "global warming", assuimng that it is man induced, because the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions were NOT addressed! It was bound to have the same effectivity as two lame individuals stopping a locust hoard by stomping on individual locusts once the populaltion boom phase is in full swing. To think otherwise is in extreme error.

"Then about 2 million years to rebuild the reefs." shows the same concern for accuracy.

I've been on prehistoric beaches at -250' in the tectonicly stable Bahamas, and have seen and dove on prehistoric beach escarpmants in the Gulf of Mexico below 150'. Stony reef building corals do NOT grow below the depth of effective light penetration. The symbiotic algae necessary for the reef to lay down the calcareous skeleton just doesn't grow well in the dark. Most places in the world that limits growth to depths of less than 150'. Deepwater corals are either soft, or have a much reduced growth rate. At times of the Maximum heights of the ice sheets covering the Northern continents sea levels were up to 140 meters below current levels. Any reef above those depths has to be younger than the last time the seawater dipped to the level in question. See Chart:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/clisci100k.html

Pacific Seamounts are formed by a different mechanism based on the flexing of the basalt base under the extinct volcanic cone. The reef's around them less than 120M deep are all newer than 10,000 years.

Hard corals will colonize new substrate as the sea levels rise, and the extent of the familiar reefs may actually expand as they move north. Tropical corals will simply change to colonies of more heat tolerant corals. 50 years after all corals were killed by the Bikini blasts the coral is lush and well developed. Krakatoa is used by biologists studying reef development as the start of that reef is well documented:

http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/grp7/asia/question879.html

http://www.asc-india.org/gq/krakatoa.htm

FT