Barrier reef in trouble

[bermudaskink]

At least there is some good news...

Australia to Ban Fishing from Third of Barrier Reef
Australia will ban fishing and shipping from one-third of Australia's
Great Barrier Reef from July 1 under laws approved by parliament
Thursday for protecting the world's largest living structure. The coral
reef, one of Australia's main tourist attractions with its magnificent
array of tropical fish, is under threat from record high temperatures,
over-fishing and pollution.

Read more at link below:

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24449/story.htm

 

[scubafanatic]

....a commendable move on Australia's part......unfortunately, projections are that by the year 2050 the Great Barrier Reef will be totally extinct anyway...an inevitable victim of Global Warming...and that corals reefs worldwide will be totally extinct by the year 2100 for the same reason.

Karl

 

[archman]

projections are that by the year 2050 the Great Barrier Reef will be totally extinct anyway...an inevitable victim of Global Warming...and that corals reefs worldwide will be totally extinct by the year 2100 for the same reason.

Could you please either link or quote your source? I would like to know what the expected surface water temps are projected to escalate to for the tropics... there is a great deal of variance in the literature. So far the only solid value accepted by oceanographers is the 0.1C increase currently measured this century.

 

[scubafanatic]

Could you please either link or quote your source? I would like to know what the expected surface water temps are projected to escalate to for the tropics... there is a great deal of variance in the literature. So far the only solid value accepted by oceanographers is the 0.1C increase currently measured this century.

Hi archman,
The links I'm referencing I recently read on the BBC WWW site, but I can't find those links right now...however, I did find you some similiar links, which draw the same conclusions:

http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/10/10232000/ap_coral_39494.asp?P=2

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3072741.stm

Actually, here's a really cool (and shocking) link.......

http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html

This last link is the home page of "MASS EXTINCTION UNDERWAY" .....lists a HUGE number of related links/articles
decribing in detail mankind's assault on planet Earth and all it's lifeforms.......it's a TERRIFYING www page....don't read it unless you don't want to be able to sleep at night..it's THAT disturbing!

Karl

 

[archman]

Those "manmade mass extinction" reports are only just starting to get much publicity, and I expect a slough of popular-type books to pop up shortly on the topic. It's pretty hard to scientifically argue against extinct species.

Back to this topic, I liked the map of the Caribbean from this link. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3072741.stm

If you look closely, you will note that pretty much all areas near human population centers (note the exception of Cuba) show coral declines, even pristine sites like the Flower Gardens Banks (I was surprised by THAT). That tells scientists two things:
A. Coral is declining pretty much wherever we sample
B. Coral is probably declining in more remote areas where we can't commonly sample

Global warming's more immediate threat is not slowly increasing temperatures mind, but the imbalances in weather patterns cause by such fluxes. More severe El Nino type events and increased hurricane frequency have been postulated and in some cases verified. 1998's El Nino was particularly hot and bad for the coral in the Florida Keys. Rampant bleaching, and then that nasty hurricane came in and trashed Big Pine Key. I missed it by a couple weeks.

 

[scubafanatic]

Hi archman,
...here's a specific link to the total extinction of the Great Barrier Reef by 2050:

New study warns that Australia's Great Barrier Reef - the world's largest coral reef - will lose 95% of its coral by 2050 and could completely collapse by 2100 because of rising ocean temperatures due to global warming.

http://www.eces.org/articles/000788.php

Karl

 

[zboss]

Using dynamite has nothing to do with "having enough to eat" and everything to do with illegal and unchecked commerce.

In the Philippines, there's a lot of wholesale destruction of the reefs by dynamite fishing, cyanide fishing, and net fishing. Also, they're cutting down so many trees that there's major erosion, with mud flowing into the water and covering more corals.

The reefs there are so beautiful, but every time I go back, the reefs are a little sparser.

It's so sad. The people are compromising their future in order to have enough to eat today.

 

[zboss]

You have got to be kidding. Have you looked at where a great deal of our electronic gadgets and textiles are being manufactured? Have you seen that the US consistently buys more than it sells to "3rd wold countries"? How is this "screwing over" the third world? Don't blame the wholesale destruction of their environment on the US - blame it on good old capitalism.

I think this is happening because the capatilist west is constantly screwing over the 3rd world and places like the Phillipines don't have enough to survive without destorying their own environment... also I would guess that the natives actions are induced by the government's mismangement of the island's resources, and the human communities which rely on them (overpopulation etc.). You can't blame the people for trying to survive.

 

[archman]

The science community most certainly does not throw their support behind manmade-induced climate change. The media and vaguely-informed public however DO. It's very strange, having the public being more "green-minded" than the scientists actually working on the problem. Can't hurt I suppose. If only nuclear power would work this way in the U.S...

Having only a modest amount of physical oceanographic education my opinion on the matter is not very useful. I can however direct people to visit this message board, rife with NASA, meterological, and other hard science types smarter and better informed on the subject than I. It exemplifies the current lack of understanding in global climate modelling, and debunks some of the "woo-woo" global warming chants tossed out on TV and public radio. Not to say it's ALL garbage, but a lot of it is far less reliable than you are led to think.
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=10177

Half of what they're saying is over even my head, but you can easily get the gist that things are a contentious muddle. Note most of the arguments are not over little details, but general climate models and forecasts. When scientists disagree in this manner it's like waving a red flag.