Thu, Apr 14, 2016 from NYTimes, via DesdemonaDespair: The Looming 'Planetary Crisis': Mass Bleaching of the Coral Reefs The damage off Kiritimati is part of a mass bleaching of coral reefs around the world, only the third on record and possibly the worst ever. Scientists believe that heat stress from multiple weather events including the latest, severe El Niño, compounded by climate change, has threatened more than a third of Earth's coral reefs. Many may not recover.
Coral reefs are the crucial incubators of the ocean's ecosystem, providing food and shelter to a quarter of all marine species, and they support fish stocks that feed more than one billion people. They are made up of millions of tiny animals, called polyps, that form symbiotic relationships with algae, which in turn capture sunlight and carbon dioxide to make sugars that feed the polyps.
An estimated 30 million small-scale fishermen and women depend on reefs for their livelihoods, more than one million in the Philippines alone. In Indonesia, fish supported by the reefs provide the primary source of protein.
"This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it," said Justin Marshall, the director of CoralWatch at Australia's University of Queensland....
...
Surely we can devise a few million floating solar-powered water coolers to stabilize those reefs!
Mon, Aug 17, 2015 from Gail at Wit: Dispatch from the Endocene, #9 Following is the transcript from my segment on Extinction Radio which airs Sunday, August 16 ...
The Dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is larger this summer than it has ever been, about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.... [Elsewhere,] "The toxic algae blooms in the Pacific Ocean stretching from southern California to Alaska -- already the largest ever recorded -- appear to have reached as far as the Aleutian Islands, scientists say. "The anecdotal evidence suggests we're having a major event," said Bruce Wright...
"Insecticides that are sprayed in orchards and fields across North America may be more toxic to spiders than scientists previously believed"...
"[T]he recent determination that cancer is almost entirely the result of exposure to various modern toxins"...
"Every year over the last decade and a half, the U.S. Geological Survey has descended on Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in California to give 17,000 trees a physical. But in a growing number of cases, what's starting off as a check-up is turning into an autopsy."...
"I used to call them 'the immortals,' because they just never seemed to die," he says. "In the fourth year of drought, they've started dying by the bucket-loads. So they're no longer the immortals." ...
If all this were really happening, I'd be hearing about it on the news. Because that's what they're giving us, right? News? What's really happening?
Sun, Apr 13, 2014 from Guardian: Entire marine food chain at risk from rising CO2 levels in water Researchers studied the behavior of coral reef fish at naturally occurring CO2 vents in Milne Bay, in eastern Papua New Guinea.
They found that fish living near the vents, where bubbles of CO2 seeped into the water, "were attracted to predator odour, did not distinguish between odours of different habitats, and exhibited bolder behaviour than fish from control reefs".
The gung-ho nature of CO2-affected fish means that more of them are picked off by predators than is normally the case, raising potentially worrying possibilities in a scenario of rising carbon emissions.
More than 90 percent of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere is soaked up by the oceans. When CO2 is dissolved in water, it causes ocean acidification, which slightly lowers the pH of the water and changes its chemistry. Crustaceans can find it hard to form shells in highly acidic water, while corals risk episodes of bleaching. ...
When you say "entire marine food chain," can you be more specific?
Mon, Feb 17, 2014 from BBC: Killer starfish threaten Great Barrier Reef Waves of carnivorous starfish are eating their way through Australia's Great Barrier Reef - and sugar cane farming is being blamed. ... Australian scientists are now looking at ways to reduce the destruction wreaked by starfish, which have the ability to smother coral and digest the fleshy parts.
"Crown of thorns are amazing creatures, they can grow to larger than a dinner plate they have multiple arms they're covered in spines," said Craig Humphrey, manager of the AIMS SEASIM project, the world's largest marine environment simulator.
"They go onto a coral, invert their stomach and dissolve and digest the coral tissue.".... Excess fertiliser from agriculture, in Queensland particularly from sugar cane farming, is leached into rivers which then run into the sea, taking these concentrated nutrients to the reef. ...
Mon, Dec 16, 2013 from Christian Science Monitor: Australia approves coal port near Great Barrier Reef Environmentalists fear that approval for one of the world's largest coal ports and an associated dredging operation to create a 'shipping super-highway' will cause severe damage to Australia's Great Barrier Reef. ...
Fri, Nov 15, 2013 from BBC: Emissions of CO2 driving rapid oceans 'acid trip' -- 300 million-year-old flashback The world's oceans are becoming acidic at an "unprecedented rate" and may be souring more rapidly than at any time in the past 300 million years.
In their strongest statement yet on this issue, scientists say acidification could increase by 170 percent by 2100.
They say that some 30 percent of ocean species are unlikely to survive in these conditions.
The researchers conclude that human emissions of CO2 are clearly to blame.
The study will be presented at global climate talks in Poland next week.
...
You mean to tell me all that ocean plastic isn't absorbing excess carbon? That was the whole point!
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 from University of Sydney: Evidence of Unsustainable Fishing in the Great Barrier Reef Sea cucumber fishing in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park shows worrying signs of being unsustainable. Many species being targeted are endangered and vulnerable to extinction, as determined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.... "Sea cucumbers play a vital role in reef health and our previous research indicates that they may help reduce the harmful impact of ocean acidification on coral growth. The viability of their numbers may well be crucial to the condition of coral reef ecosystems." ...
Mon, Oct 14, 2013 from Climate News Network: Ocean Deteriorating More Rapidly Than Thought Marine scientists say the state of the world's oceans is deteriorating more rapidly than anyone had realized, and is worse than that described in last month's U.N. climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
They say the rate, speed and impacts of ocean change are greater, faster and more imminent than previously thought -- and they expect summertime Arctic sea ice cover will have disappeared in around 25 years. ...
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 from The Independent: Coral alert: destruction of reefs 'accelerating' with half destroyed over past 30 years The rapid decline of the world's coral reefs appears to be accelerating, threatening to destroy huge swathes of marine life unless dramatic action is swiftly taken, a leading ocean scientist has warned.
About half of the world's coral reefs have already been destroyed over the past 30 years, as climate change warms the sea and rising carbon emissions make it more acidic....
"Our oceans are in an unprecedented state of decline due to pollution, over-fishing and climate change. The state of the reefs is very poor and it is continuing to deteriorate," said Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, of the University of Queensland.
"This is an eco-system that has been around for tens of millions of years and we are wiping it out within a hundred. It's quite incredible." ...
Do you get it yet, Nature? We can kick your ass until we're dead.
Sun, Sep 15, 2013 from Seattle Sun-Times: Actual journalism on ocean acidification Imagine every person on Earth tossing a hunk of CO2 as heavy as a bowling ball into the sea. That's what we do to the oceans every day....
Scientists once considered that entirely good news, since it removed CO2 from the sky. Some even proposed piping more emissions to the sea.
But all that CO2 is changing the chemistry of the ocean faster than at any time in human history. Now the phenomenon known as ocean acidification -- the lesser-known twin of climate change -- is helping push the seas toward a great unraveling that threatens to scramble marine life on a scale almost too big to fathom, and far faster than first expected....
"There's a train wreck coming and we are in a position to slow that down and make it not so bad," said Stephen Palumbi, a professor of evolutionary and marine biology at Stanford University. "But if we don't start now the wreck will be enormous."...
Roughly a quarter of organisms studied by researchers actually do better in high CO2. Another quarter seem unaffected. But entire marine systems are built around the remaining half of susceptible plants and animals.... [T]he winners will mostly be the weeds."...
The pace of change has caught everyone off guard. ...
... the weeds, the vermin, the generalists that reproduce quickly. Plague of rats, weeds, and insects, anyone?
Sun, Jun 30, 2013 from PhysOrg: Major changes needed for coral reef survival To prevent coral reefs around the world from dying off, deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are required, says a new study from Carnegie's Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira. They find that all existing coral reefs will be engulfed in inhospitable ocean chemistry conditions by the end of the century if civilization continues along its current emissions trajectory. Their work will be published July 3 by Environmental Research Letters....
Coral reefs use a mineral called aragonite to make their skeletons. It is a naturally occurring form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3. When carbon dioxide, CO2, from the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, it forms carbonic acid (the same thing that makes soda fizz), making the ocean more acidic and decreasing the ocean's pH. This increase in acidity makes it more difficult for many marine organisms to grow their shells and skeletons, and threatens coral reefs the world over.
Using results from simulations conducted using an ensemble of sophisticated models, Ricke, Caldeira, and their co-authors calculated ocean chemical conditions that would occur under different future scenarios and determined whether these chemical conditions could sustain coral reef growth.
Ricke said: "Our results show that if we continue on our current emissions path, by the end of the century there will be no water left in the ocean with the chemical properties that have supported coral reef growth in the past. We can't say with 100 percent certainty that all shallow-water coral reefs will die, but it is a pretty good bet."
...
"Acidity" is just another word for "opportunity," right?
Mon, Mar 25, 2013 from Reuters: Reef-building corals lose out to softer cousins due warming Climate change is likely to make reef-building stony corals lose out to softer cousins in a damaging shift for many types of fish that use reefs as hideaways and nurseries for their young, a study showed.
Soft corals such as mushroom-shaped yellow leather coral, which lack a hard outer skeleton, were far more abundant than hard corals off Iwotorishima, an island off south Japan where volcanic vents make the waters slightly acidic, it said.
A build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is turning the oceans more acidic in a process likely to hamper the ability of creatures such as lobsters, crabs, mussels or stony corals to build protective outer layers. ...
Climate change will turn us all into a bunch of softies.
Thu, Dec 27, 2012 from Agence France-Press: China's boom savages coral reefs: study China's economic boom has seen its coral reefs shrink by at least 80 percent over the past 30 years, a joint Australian study found Thursday ...
Scientists from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology said their survey of mainland China and South China Sea reefs showed alarming degradation... Coastal development, pollution and overfishing linked to the Asian giant's aggressive economic expansion were the major drivers, the authors said, describing a "grim picture of decline, degradation and destruction". ...
There's no sense of corality when it comes to mindless growth.
Tue, Oct 2, 2012 from FOX News: Half of Great Barrier Reef has vanished, study finds Australia's Great Barrier Reef is a glittering gem -- the world's largest coral reef ecosystem -- chock-full of diverse marine life. But new research shows it is also in steep decline, with half of the reef vanishing in the past 27 years.
Katharina Fabricius, a coral reef ecologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science and study co-author, told LiveScience that she has been diving and working on the reef since 1988 -- and has watched the decline. "I hear of the changes anecdotally, but this is the first long-term look at the overall status of the reef. There are still a lot of fish, and you can see giant clams, but not the same color and diversity as in the past."...
The biggest factors are smashing from tropical cyclones, crown-of-thorns starfish that eat coral and are boosted by nutrient runoff from agriculture, and coral bleaching from high-temperatures, which are rising due to climate change.
...
Thu, Sep 27, 2012 from PhysOrg: Sea of the living dead The world's coral reefs have become a zombie ecosystem, neither dead nor truly alive, and are on a trajectory to collapse within a human generation according to an academic from The Australian National University.
Professor Roger Bradbury, an ecologist from the Crawford School of Public Policy in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, said overfishing, ocean acidification and pollution are pushing coral reefs into oblivion. "The scientific evidence for this is compelling and unequivocal, but there seems to be a collective reluctance to accept the logical conclusion--that there is no hope of saving the global coral reef ecosystem," he said. "There is no real prospect of changing the trajectory of coral reef destruction in less than 20 to 50 years. In short, these forces are unstoppable and irreversible. "By persisting in the false belief that coral reefs have a future, we grossly misallocate the funds needed to cope with the fallout from their collapse. Money isn't spent to study what to do after the reefs are gone."
...
Tue, Sep 11, 2012 from London Guardian: Caribbean coral reefs face collapse Caribbean coral reefs -- which make up one of the world's most colourful, vivid and productive ecosystems -- are on the verge of collapse, with less than 10 percent of the reef area showing live coral cover.
With so little growth left, the reefs are in danger of utter devastation unless urgent action is taken, conservationists warned. They said the drastic loss was the result of severe environmental problems, including over-exploitation, pollution from agricultural run-off and other sources, and climate change.
The decline of the reefs has been rapid: in the 1970s, more than 50 percent showed live coral cover, compared with 8 percent in the newly completed survey. ...
Fri, Sep 7, 2012 from AP, hosted on Google: Report: 'Time is running out' for Caribbean coral An international conservation organization is painting a grim picture of the Caribbean's iconic coral reefs.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature says the Caribbean's reefs are in sharp decline, with live coral coverage down to an average of just 8 percent. That's down from 50 percent in the 1970s. The non-governmental organization released a report Friday at an international environmental conference in Korea.
The causes include overfishing, pollution, disease and bleaching caused by rising global temperatures. The group says the situation is somewhat better in some places, including the Dutch islands of the southern Caribbean and the British territory of the Cayman Islands, with up to 30 percent cover in places.
But the union concludes that "time is running out" and new safeguards are urgently needed. ...
What an opportunity! Nanocoral™ anyone? How 'bout micro-robotic coral?
Thu, Mar 1, 2012 from AFP, via Google: Ocean acidification may be worst in 300 million years: study High levels of pollution may be turning the planet's oceans acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the past 300 million years, with unknown consequences for future sea life, researchers said Thursday.
The acidification may be worse than during four major mass extinctions in history when natural pulses of carbon from asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions caused global temperatures to soar, said the study in the journal Science.
An international team of researchers from the United States, Britain, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands examined hundreds of paleoceanographic studies, including fossils wedged in seafloor sediment from millions of years ago.
They found only one time in history that came close to what scientists are seeing today in terms of ocean life die-off -- a mysterious period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about 56 million years ago....
"But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about -- coral reefs, oysters, salmon." ...
Tue, Jan 31, 2012 from ArsTechnica: Ocean acidification already well beyond natural variability Ocean acidification entails a decrease in the pH of ocean water as the carbonate that buffers it is consumed. That carbonate does more than just maintain pH, though. Lots of marine organisms, from plankton to mollusks to coral, use it to build shells and skeletons. As the buffer is depleted, the saturation state of carbonate minerals like calcite (and its polymorph aragonite) decreases, making it more difficult for organisms to incorporate them. In most areas of the surface ocean, calcite and aragonite are supersaturated, making it easy for organisms to build shells and skeletons. In undersaturated water, the equilibrium tilts the other way, and dissolution of these structures becomes possible....
In all areas where coral reefs are found (these are often described as the "rainforests of the sea" for their astonishing diversity and abundance of life), the researchers find that the current saturation state of aragonite is well below the pre-industrial average. To put it into concrete terms, they estimate that calcification rates of reef organisms have already dropped by about 15 percent. Under the A1B emissions scenario, calcification rates would decrease by a total of 40 percent (relative to pre-industrial) by 2100. ...
I'd have to accept this, were I to kowtow to the tyranny of facts.
Thu, Jan 5, 2012 from TED, via The Oil Drum: Jeremy Jackson talks about How We Wrecked the Ocean
Jeremy Jackson is the Ritter Professor of Oceanography and Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. ...
Tue, Aug 30, 2011 from University of Hawai'i: Scientist creates new hypothesis on ocean acidification Aragonite is the mineral form of calcium carbonate that is laid down by corals to build their hard skeleton. Researchers wanted to know how the declining saturation state of this important mineral would impact living coral populations....
In the past, scientists have focused on processes at the coral tissues. The alternative provided by Jokiel's "proton flux hypothesis" is that calcification of coral skeletons are dependent on the passage of hydrogen ions between the water column and the coral tissue. This process ultimately disrupts corals' ability to create an aragonite skeleton. Lowered calcification rates are problematic for coral reefs because it creates weakened coral skeletons leaving them susceptible to breakage, and decreasing protection....
The model is a radical departure from previous thought, but is consistent with existing observations and warrants testing in future studies." In general, this hypothesis does not change the general conclusions that increased ocean acidification is lowering coral growth throughout the world, but rather describes the mechanism involved. ...
Sun, Aug 28, 2011 from EPOCA: Warming of the Mediterranean Sea hampers the resistance of corals and mollusks to ocean acidification Some calcifiers (mussels, gastropods and corals) protect their shell or skeleton from the corrosive effects of increasing ocean acidification. They can therefore resist some of the damaging effects of increasing ocean acidity generated by the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere through human activities. This resistance is diminished when organisms are exposed to extended period of elevated temperature (28.5 deg C). This is a result of an international study (1), co-led by Jean-Pierre Gattuso, research scientist at Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche (CNRS/UPMC), published in the journal Nature Climate Change. These results suggest that the ongoing and future warming of the Mediterranean combined with the rise of its acidity will increase the frequency of mass-mortality events....
The tissues and organic layers covering the shells and skeletons play a major role to protect them from the corrosive action of high-acidity seawater. However, the areas of shells and skeletons that are not protected by tissues or organic layers are vulnerable and more prone to dissolution. The higher the acidity, the faster dissolution is. The scientists have shown that this capacity to resist is much lower when the organisms are subject to an extended period of elevated temperature (28.5°C). At this temperature, mortality is increasing with increasing acidity.
Some Mediterranean invertebrates already live at their upper limit of temperature tolerance and have already experienced mass-mortality events. The combined effect of warming and increased acidity will likely increase the frequency of these events in the future. ...
Wed, Aug 17, 2011 from Scientific American: Human Sewage Identified as Coral Killer A Florida biologist has linked a vicious coral-killing pathogen in the Caribbean and Florida Keys to human sewage that leaks into the ocean from improperly treated wastewater.
The Caribbean Elkhorn coral was at one time the most common coral in the Caribbean, but has declined by 90 percent over the last 15 years and is now an endangered species. Among the many factors contributing to its decline is a disease known as white pox, caused by Serratio marcescens, a common fecal intestinal bacteria found in the guts of many humans and other animals, including seagulls, Key deer and cats. But whether it came from humans or another source has been a mystery....
To determine the source of the pathogen, the team tested human sewage, along with that of several other organisms, including seabirds, fireworms, snails and deer. A genetic analysis showed that only the strain found in human sewage and snails matched the strain in the coral....
The result: only coral inoculated with the human strain of the bacteria got sick.
...
Sat, Jun 25, 2011 from SightlineDaily: Trouble on the Half Shell Four summers ago, Sue Cudd couldn't keep a baby oyster alive.
She'd start with hundreds of millions of oyster larvae in the tanks at the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts, Oregon. Only a handful would make it....
A hatchery that has supplied seafood businesses for three decades had virtually nothing to sell for months, said Cudd, who owns the hatchery.
"They would just sort of fade away... It was really devastating. We're kind of the independent growers' hatchery, and we had always been reliable up until that point. People were just shocked. I heard a lot of times how it was ruining people's businesses."
It's tough to say with scientific certainty that ocean acidification is the sole cause of the die-offs that have plagued two of the Northwest's three major oyster hatcheries in the last few years.
But this much seems clear: young oysters have a hard time surviving in conditions that will only become more widespread as carbon dioxide from cars, coal plants and other industries cause the fundamental chemistry of the ocean to become more acidic. ...
Thankfully, there's news about the Royal Couple I can focus on!
Mon, Jun 20, 2011 from BBC: World's oceans in 'shocking' decline The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.
In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history".
They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised.
The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity....
"The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.
"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.
"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years." ...
I hear Britney is showing off plenty of skin on her new "Femme Fatale" tour!
Sun, May 29, 2011 from NatureClimate, via EurekAlert: Tiny bubbles signal severe impacts to coral reefs worldwide The research team studied three natural volcanic CO2 seeps in Papua New Guinea to better understand how ocean acidification will impact coral reefs ecosystem diversity. The study details the effects of long-term exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide and low pH on Indo-Pacific coral reefs, a condition that is projected to occur by the end of the century as increased man-made CO2 emissions alter the current pH level of seawater, turning the oceans acidic.
"These 'champagne reefs' are natural analogs of how coral reefs may look in 100 years if ocean acidification conditions continue to get worse," said Langdon, UM Rosenstiel School professor and co-principal investigator of the study....
The study shows shifts in the composition of coral species and reductions in biodiversity and recruitment on the reef as pH declined from 8.1 to 7.8. The team also reports that reef development would cease at a pH below 7.7. The IPCC 4th Assessment Report estimates that by the end of the century, ocean pH will decline from the current level of 8.1 to 7.8, due to rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
"The seeps are probably the closest we can come to simulating the effect of man-made CO2 emissions on a coral reef," said Langdon. "They allow us to see the end result of the complex interactions between species under acidic ocean conditions." ...
Tiny bubbles, in the brine / Tiny bubbles, don't feel fine.
You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy): Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
Thu, May 26, 2011 from ScienceDaily: First Legal Roadmap to Tackle Local Ocean Acidification Hotspots Coastal communities hard hit by ocean acidification hotspots have more options than they may realize, says an interdisciplinary team of science and legal experts. In a paper published in the journal Science, experts from Stanford University's Center for Ocean Solutions and colleagues make the case that communities don't need to wait for a global solution to ocean acidification to fix a local problem that is compromising their marine environment. Many localized acidification hotspots can be traced to local contributors of acidity that can be addressed using existing laws, they wrote....
"We identified practical steps communities can take today to counter local sources of acidity." The paper, entitled "Mitigating Local Causes of Ocean Acidification with Existing Laws," is the first to lay out how acidification hotspots can be reduced by applying federal and state laws and policies at a local level....
...
That roadmap doesn't show too many rest areas ahead.
Sat, Apr 16, 2011 from New Scientist: Acidic ocean robs coral of vital building material CARBON dioxide has pillaged the Great Barrier Reef of a compound that corals and many sea creatures need to grow. The finding, from the first survey of ocean acidification around one of the world's greatest natural landmarks, supports fears that the ecosystem is on its last legs.
Bizarrely, the reef doesn't appear to be suffering from the effects of ocean acidification just yet. But that may be because it is balanced on a knife-edge between health and decay.
Oceans become acidic when they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Once dissolved, the gas reacts with carbonate to form bicarbonate, stripping seawater of the compound that many marine organisms including coral, shrimp and crabs need to build their shells or skeletons....
Studies in the Red Sea have found that some species of coral start to dissolve at a [aragonite] saturation of 2.8.
"Almost every bit of water we sampled was below 3.5," says Tilbrook, who presented his findings at Greenhouse 2011 in Cairns this week. Close to the shore, to the south of the reef, the saturation was 3.... ...
All those corals need to do is find a better contractor.
Fri, Apr 15, 2011 from BBC: Exploring the 'oceans crisis' What marked this week's event - convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean - as something a bit different was the melange of expertise in the same room.
Fisheries experts traded studies with people studying ocean acidification; climate modellers swapped data with ecologists; legal wonks formulated phrases alongside toxicologists.
They debated, discussed, queried, swapped questions and answers. Pretty much everyone said they'd learned something new - and something a bit scary....
It's fairly well-known now, for example, that the impacts of climate change on coral reefs can be delayed by keeping the reef healthy - by preventing local pollution, keeping fish stocks high and blocking invasive species.
So a policy to reduce climate impacts can mean curbing fishing or pollution, which might in turn mean changing farming practices to prevent fertiliser run-off.
In places, filter-feeding fish are apparently living in sediments containing so many particles of plastic that it makes up half of each mouthful. Other pollutants such as endocrine-disrupting ("gender-bending") chemicals gather on the plastic surfaces - which obviously can be harmful to the fish.
So a "healthy fisheries" policy might again involve regulating pollutants....
Josh Reichert, head of the Pew Environment Group, likening the current situation to...
"... driving towards the edge of a cliff while taking copious notes along the way.
"For years the science has gotten better, and the problem has become worse. Better science will enhance our understanding of the dilemma we face but will not resolve it - we depend on government to do that, and the challenge we face is getting government to act."
...
Sun, Mar 6, 2011 from Time: Testing the Waters ...Corals build colonies that secrete calcium carbonate to form ocean reefs. When they're healthy, coral reefs provide shelter and food for animals all along the food chain, including the top: us. Across the planet, half a billion people rely, directly and indirectly, on corals for their living. That's why what happens to the 9,000-year-old Great Barrier Reef, as well as to other reefs worldwide, is critical. The recent Queensland floods were most notably tragic for the lives lost and property destroyed. But they have also hurt the Great Barrier Reef by funneling into the ocean vast plumes of freshwater and agricultural runoff that could severely damage the coral. Besides the extreme rain that sparked the floods, rising ocean temperatures, changes to the ocean's chemistry and the global trade in natural resources -- all symptoms of our fossil-fuel economy -- are waging a multifront war on the marine environment. "You can't walk into a forest and start hacking at branches and killing off animals and denuding the forest cover without killing the trees," says Justin Marshall, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland. "The outlook for the whole reef is poor."
...
This story brought to you by a mag once called TIME now called NO TIME LEFT.
Wed, Feb 23, 2011 from BBC: Coral reefs heading for fishing and climate crisis Three-quarters of the world's coral reefs are at risk due to overfishing, pollution, climate change and other factors, says a major new assessment.
Reefs at Risk Revisited collates the work of hundreds of scientists and took three years to compile.
The biggest threat is exploitative fishing, the researchers say, though most reefs will be feeling the impact of climate change within 20 years....
"The report is full of solutions - real world examples where people have succeeded to turn things around," said Dr Spalding.
"However, if we don't learn from these successes then I think that in 50 years' time, most reefs will be gone - just banks of eroding limestone, overgrown with algae and grazed by a small variety of small fish." ...
You guys are forgetting all the flooded coastal cities -- there'll be new reef areas galore!
Sat, Jan 15, 2011 from Guardian: Australian floods: Why were we so surprised? After 10 years of drought, we are having the inevitable flooding rains. The pattern is repeated regularly and yet Australians are still taken by surprise.
The meteorologists will tell you that the current deluge is a product of La Nina. At fairly regular intervals, atmospheric pressure on the western side of the Pacific falls; the trade winds blow from the cooler east side towards the trough, pushing warm surface water westwards towards the bordering land masses. As the water-laden air is driven over the land it cools and drops its load. In June last year the bureau of meteorology issued a warning that La Nina was about "to dump buckets" on Australia. In 1989-90 La Nina brought flooding to New South Wales and Victoria, in 1998 to New South Wales and Queensland. Dr Andrew Watkins, manager of the bureau's climate prediction services, told the assembled media: "Computer model forecasts show a significant likelihood of a La Nina in 2010." In Brisbane the benchmark was the flood of 1974; most Queenslanders are unaware that the worst flood in Brisbane's history happened in 1893. Six months ago the meteorologists thought it was worthwhile to warn people to "get ready for a wet, late winter and a soaked spring and summer". So what did the people do? Nothing. They said, "She'll be right, mate". She wasn't.... The rest of the world might well be scratching its head. Though the rise of the Brisbane river had been predicted for many days, owners left their boats on the river, some of them moored to pontoons, which were themselves ripped from their moorings. Literally hundreds of pontoons went careering down the river, crashing into unmanned powerboats that were already cannoning into each other. A long section of the riverside walkway broke away and became a waterborne missile.... After the Fitzroy river flooded Rockhampton in 1991, all the corals and sea grasses round the Keppel Islands died. The area had not yet recovered when the brown tide returned at the beginning of January, and keeps coming. The fresh water now entering the seas off Australia is expected to drift northwards to where the Great Barrier Reef is already struggling with rising sea temperatures. In ecological terms, worse, perhaps very much worse, is on the way. Australia owes it to the rest of the world to get a handle on its regular floods. Or she won't be right, mate. ...
But if we started believing computer models' predictions, we'd have to change our lifestyle!
Wed, Jan 12, 2011 from Reuters, via Desdemona: Floods threaten Australia's Great Barrier Reef Australia's devastating floods are flushing toxic, pesticide-laden sediment into the Great Barrier Reef, and could threaten fragile corals and marine life in the world's largest living organism, environmentalists said on Monday. Flood plumes from the swollen Fitzroy and Burnett rivers in Queensland state had muddied reef waters as far as the Keppel Island Group, about 40 km (24 miles) offshore, at the southern end of the World Heritage-listed reef.
"Toxic pollution from flooded farms and towns along the Queensland coast will have a disastrous impact on the Great Barrier Reefs corals and will likely have a significant impact on dugongs, turtles and other marine life," the World Wild Life Fund (WWF) said in a statement.... The damage to the Great Barrier Reef would be exacerbated because the floods are "bigger, dirtier and more dangerous due to excessive tree clearing, overgrazing and soil compaction", the WWF said.
Experts expect the reef to recover, but depending on the coral resilience, that could take up to 100 years. ...
If God didn't want those toxins in the coral, He wouldn't have let us use them in the first place.
Fri, Dec 17, 2010 from DesdemonaDespair: The Twelve Doomiest Stories of 2010 Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert:
Scientists warn of ecological catastrophe across Asia as glaciers melt and the continent's great rivers dry up.... Death of coral reefs could devastate nations, have 'tremendous cascade effect for all life in the oceans':
Coral reefs are part of the foundation of the ocean food chain. Nearly half the fish the world eats make their homes around them. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide -- by some estimates, 1 billion across Asia alone -- depend on them for their food and their livelihoods.... Ocean fish extinct within 40 years:
The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 unless fishing fleets are slashed and stocks allowed to recover, UN experts warned.... Oceans acidifying much faster than ever before in Earth's history:
"It is not the first time in the history of the Earth that the oceans have acidified, but a disturbing aspect now is that it is occurring much faster than ever before. As a consequence, not only the pH value drops, but the saturation state of the oceans with respect to carbonate falls as well. Times are tough, especially for calcifying organisms," says Prof. Jelle Bijma, marine biogeoscientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute. ...
Thank goodness this is all a game, and we can just hit "reset" whenever we want to start over!
Fri, Dec 10, 2010 from New York Times: An Alert on Ocean Acidity Carbon dioxide emissions from man-made sources are causing the acidity level of the world's oceans to rise at what is probably the fastest rate in 65 million years, threatening global fisheries that serve as an essential food source for billions of people, according to a new United Nations report.... The acidity of the oceans has grown 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. At current emission rates, ocean acidity could be 150 percent higher by the end of the century, the report states.... "No doubt different species of coral, coralline algae, plankton and mollusks will show different tolerances, and their capacity to calcify will decline at different rates," Dr. Veron wrote. "But as acidification progresses, they will all suffer from some form of coralline osteoporosis."
"The result will be that corals will no longer be able to build reefs or maintain them against the forces of erosion," the article continues. "What were once thriving coral gardens that supported the greatest biodiversity of the marine realm will become red-black bacterial slime, and they will stay that way." ...
Quite apart from the massive die-off of nearly all marine ecosystems -- that bacterial slime will stink!
Mon, Dec 6, 2010 from Yale360: Is the End in Sight for The World's Coral Reefs? You may well feel that dire predictions about anything almost always turn out to be exaggerations. You may think there may be something in it to worry about, but it won't be as bad as doomsayers like me are predicting. This view is understandable given that only a few decades ago I, myself, would have thought it ridiculous to imagine that reefs might have a limited lifespan on Earth as a consequence of human actions. It would have seemed preposterous that, for example, the Great Barrier Reef -- the biggest structure ever made by life on Earth -- could be mortally threatened by any present or foreseeable environmental change.
Yet here I am today, humbled to have spent the most productive scientific years of my life around the rich wonders of the underwater world, and utterly convinced that they will not be there for our children's children to enjoy unless we drastically change our priorities and the way we live.... In a long period of deep personal anguish, I turned to specialists in many different fields of science to find anything that might suggest a fault in my own conclusions. But in this quest I was depressingly unsuccessful.... The early stages of acidification have now been detected in the Southern Ocean and, surprisingly perhaps, in tropical corals. On our current trajectory of increasing atmospheric CO2, we can expect that by 2030 to 2050 the acidification process will be affecting all the oceans of the world to some degree.... The atmospheric levels of CO2 we are already committed to reach, no matter what mitigation is now implemented, have no equal over the entire longevity of the Great Barrier Reef, perhaps 25 million years. And most significantly, the rate of CO2 increase we are now experiencing has no precedent in all known geological history. ...
Sounds like you're expecting us to believe you, just because you've spent a lifetime studying marine science.
Wed, Dec 1, 2010 from Sydney Morning Herald: Australian Great Barrier Reef not looking so great They began the world-first experiment on a two-square-metre patch of the reef off Heron Island in May and found damage to the reef more serious than expected.
They will soon remove the four experimental chambers - two simulating future carbon dioxide levels and two with control conditions. They are using more than 20 precision instruments to monitor the changing water chemistry. The experiment simulates the predicted levels of carbon emissions in 2050.
Team member David Kline said the group had noted that in only eight months the part of the reef with the higher CO2 levels already looked quite different. ''What is growing there has changed, the types of algae are different and, based on our research, we would expect that the growth rate of the coral would have slowed,'' he said.
''If people's CO2 emissions continue as they have, the future of the reef is very grim. I would suggest that coral reefs will be highly altered and perturbed ecosystems by 2050 if we do not make a massive effort to curb our emissions. The findings back up much of the previous research that finds ocean acidification will have serious impacts on reefs.''... Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said scientists could use the data to predict at what point the reef would fade away. ''The corals are disappearing at a rate of 1 or 2 per cent a year ... If you multiply that by 20 years, that's 40 per cent.'' ...
A percent here, a percent there, pretty soon it adds up to real damage. Oh, hey, that might have implications elsewhere!
Sat, Oct 9, 2010 from BBC: Toxic algae rapidly kills coral Scientists studying coral reefs in the Gulf of Oman have issued the warning after being shocked by the impact of one large-scale bloom, which destroyed a coral reef in just three weeks.
Around 95 percent of the hard coral beneath the algae died off and 70 percent fewer fishes were observed in the area.
The rapidly growing patches of microscopic marine plants starve coral of sunlight and oxygen. Coral reefs are increasingly under threat from environmental stress in the form of climate change, coastal development, overfishing, and pollution. Climate change is suspected of causing a number of coral bleaching events, as rising sea temperatures stress coral communities. But the latest study, published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, suggests that algal blooms could pose another significant threat. ...
Sounds like the algae is just putting the coral out of its misery.
Wed, Oct 6, 2010 from GreenProphet.com: Lebanon's Mediterranean Apocalypse: Scuba Diving In Waters Devoid Of Life Jacques Cousteau brought the wonders of the ocean depths to the general public in two ways: he helped create the first French underwater film called "18 Meters Deep," and with Émile Gagnan, the precursor to modern scuba diving equipment, the aqua-lung. Had he foreseen how such an introduction would lead to a near-absolute destruction of the silent color and diversity that lives below the surface, the intrepid explorer may never have shared his secrets.
But he did, and though he can't be blamed, we have subsequently ruined many coral reefs and other marine ecosystems around the world. The Red Sea is in danger, the Gulf States continue to pressure their waters with blind expansionism, and the Eastern Mediterranean's ecosystem is so disfigured that, sans the distraction of beauty, it has become the perfect place to learn how to dive.... But the real benefit according to Philipp Breu, who interviewed several scuba divers in Beirut, is that the lack of underwater beauty helps beginner divers focus on technique instead.
"Situated at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the marine life is poor, with some sites best described as "moonscapes" rather than landscapes. On some days, divers should avoid inspecting the detritus floating in the shallows too closely," wrote Breu.... Perhaps it was Andy Revkin with the New York Times who wrote that our capacity to destroy is far less remarkable than our ability to adjust to the apocalypse we thereby create. Will we really allow our future to be so bland and so brown, or will we fight to live in color? ...
Fri, Sep 24, 2010 from Mongabay, via DesdemonaDespair: Colossal coral bleaching kills up to 95 percent of corals in the Philippines It is one of the most worrisome observations: fast massive death of coral reefs. A severe wide-scale bleaching occurred in the Philippines leaving 95 percent of the corals dead. The bleaching happened as the result of the 2009-2010 El Nino, with the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia waters experiencing significant thermal increase especially since the beginning of 2010.... Now, the majority of the coral are dead and are mostly covered by algae while some are already showing signs of rubble.... The consequence of this large-scale event is far from being fully known but fish diversity and populations will be highly affected. Livelihood depending on small sustainable fishing activities will see their income significantly reduced. Tourism will suffer greatly and tourists activities to replace diving will be needed.
Prior to this year's bleaching, it was estimated that about 85 percent of the reefs have been damaged or destroyed in the Philippines, now the current estimate is likely to be close to 95 percent. ...
Apocaiku: 'neath tropic waters / the few corals remaining / sway to the Ghost Dance
Wed, Sep 22, 2010 from New York Times: Extreme Heat Bleaches Coral, and Threat Is Seen This year's extreme heat is putting the world's coral reefs under such severe stress that scientists fear widespread die-offs, endangering not only the richest ecosystems in the ocean but also fisheries that feed millions of people. From Thailand to Texas, corals are reacting to the heat stress by bleaching, or shedding their color and going into survival mode. Many have already died, and more are expected to do so in coming months. Computer forecasts of water temperature suggest that corals in the Caribbean may undergo drastic bleaching in the next few weeks. ...
Mon, Aug 23, 2010 from Guardian: Coral doctor sounds the alarm about more acidic seas The changes he sees in ocean chemistry spell trouble for the coral that he studies closely. If the acidification process continues on its current trajectory, it poses a dire threat to the whole marine ecosystem.
"What I'm really concerned about with ocean acidification is that we are facing the prospect of a crash in marine food webs." says Guinotte. "There is no question that many of my colleagues in marine science are scared about what is happening. We know we need a more precise understanding of the changes and biological responses now under way -- and we need it as quickly as possible, before it is too late to turn things around."... As carbon dioxide is absorbed by seawater, hydrogen ions are released. This lower the pH, making the water more acidic. Measurements indicate that Earth's oceans are already about 30 percent more acidic than they were before the industrial revolution. As the number of hydrogen ions has risen, the number of carbonate ions available in seawater has gone down. This carbonate deficit makes life more difficult for the "marine calcifiers," species such as coral and shellfish that use carbonate to build their skeletons and protective shells.... "From the standpoint of the oceans," Guinotte says, "there is no escaping the fact that we are going to need major reductions in our CO2 emissions -- something like 80 to 90 percent. When we see governments arguing about reductions of 10 to 15 percent, I think all of us in the marine science community need to say that CO2 reductions of this scale are simply not going to be sufficient. We have to get off fossil fuels." ...
CO2 reductions of 85-90 percent? Are you tripping?
Tue, Aug 17, 2010 from PhysOrg: Massive coral mortality following bleaching in Indonesia The Wildlife Conservation Society today released initial field observations that indicate that a dramatic rise in the surface temperature in Indonesian waters has resulted in a large-scale bleaching event that has devastated coral populations. WCS's Indonesia Program "Rapid Response Unit" of marine biologists was dispatched to investigate coral bleaching reported in May in Aceh-a province of Indonesia-located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. The initial survey carried out by the team revealed that over 60 percent of corals were bleached.... Depending on many factors, bleached coral may recover over time or die.
Subsequent monitoring conducted by marine ecologists ... found that 80 percent of some species have died since the initial assessment and more colonies are expected to die within the next few months.... According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Hotspots website, temperatures in the region peaked in late May of 2010, when the temperature reached 34 degrees Celsius--4 degrees Celsius [7 degrees F] higher than long term averages for the area.... "If a similar degree of mortality is apparent at other sites in the Andaman Sea this will be the worst bleaching event ever recorded in the region.... The destruction of these upstream reefs means recovery is likely to take much longer than before". ...
Sat, Aug 7, 2010 from LiveScience: Rare Coral Discovered in Pacific Ocean What could be the world's rarest coral has been discovered in the remote North Pacific Ocean.
The Pacific elkhorn coral (Acropora rotumana) - with branches like an elk's antlers - was found during an underwater survey of the Arno atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Corals are tiny creatures that live in skeleton-covered colonies, creating the illusion that a coral community is one single organism. This newfound coral colony may be the first time this species has been spotted in more than 100 years, according to researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) in Queensland, Australia. ...
Let's fire up our personal watercraft boats and check it out!
Thu, Jul 22, 2010 from Telegraph.co.uk: Malaysia closes diving reefs to try to save dying coral Twelve reefs that attract half a million tourists from around the world annually are now closed to divers and snorkellers until the end of October to allow the corals to recover from bleaching caused by warmer seas.
Abdul Jamal Mydin, director general of the Department of Marine Parks, said that the temperature of the seas has risen to 88 degrees F (31C) in recent months, up 4 degrees F (2 degrees C) from the normal level. Up to 90 per cent of the coral has started to turn white meaning it is dying off, threatening the delicate ecosystem. ...
Mon, Jul 19, 2010 from London Daily Telegraph: Coral reefs suffer mass bleaching The phenomenon, known as coral bleaching because the reefs turn bone white when the colourful algae that give the coral its colour and food is lost, has been reported throughout south east Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
Divers and scientists have described huge areas of previously pristine reef being turned into barren white undersea landscapes off the coast of Thailand and Indonesia. The popular island tourist destination the Maldives have also suffered severe bleaching. Reefs in the Caribbean could also be under threat.
High ocean temperatures this year are being blamed for the bleaching, which experts fear could be worse than a similar event in 1998 which saw an estimated 16 per cent of the world's reefs being destroyed. ...
Fri, Jul 2, 2010 from The Economist: The other carbon-dioxide problem The declining pH does not actually make the waters acidic (they started off mildly alkaline). But it makes them more acidic, just as turning up the light makes a dark room brighter.
Ocean acidification has further chemical implications: more hydrogen ions mean more bicarbonate ions, and fewer carbonate ions. Carbonate is what corals, the shells of shellfish and the outer layers of many photosynthesising plankton and other microbes are made of. If the level of carbonate ions falls too low the shells can dissolve or might never be made at all. There is evidence that the amount of carbonate in the shells of foraminifera, micro-plankton that are crucial to ocean ecology, has recently dropped by as much as a third.... In many places, natural variations in pH will be larger than long-term changes in its mean.
This is not to say that such changes have no effect. If peak acidities rather than long-term averages are what matters most, natural variability could make things worse. But it does suggest that the effects will be far from uniform.... Studies of Australia's Great Barrier Reef show that levels of calcification are down, though it is not yet possible to say changes in chemistry are a reason for this. Current research comparing chemical data taken in the 1960s and 1970s with the situation today may clarify things.... Ocean ecosystems are beset by changes in nutrient levels due to run off near the coasts and by overfishing, which plays havoc with food webs nearly everywhere. And the effects of global warming need to be included, too. Surface waters are expected to form more stable layers as the oceans warm, which will affect the availability of nutrients and, it is increasingly feared, of oxygen.... Wherever you look, there is always another other problem. ...
Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from Penn State, via EurekAlert: Discovery of how coral reefs adapt to global warming could aid reef restoration Discovering how corals respond to ocean warming is complicated because corals serve as hosts to algae. The algae live in the coral and feed on its nitrogen wastes. Through photosynthesis, the algae then produce the carbohydrates that feed the coral. When this complex and delicate symbiosis is upset by a rise in ocean temperature, the coral may expel the algae in a phenomenon known as coral bleaching, which may cause the death of both algae and coral. The challenge is to figure out why some corals cope with the heat stress better than others.... "Our study shows that the response of larvae to changing conditions depends upon where the parent colonies lived," says Baums. "Clearly the coral larvae from Mexico and Florida respond differently to heat stress, even though they belong to the same species, showing adaptations to local conditions. The two populations have different adaptive potential."... "Variation among populations in gene expression offers the species as a whole a better chance of survival under changing conditions," Baums said. "We might be able to screen adult populations for their ability to produce heat-resistant larvae and focus our conservation efforts on those reefs." ...
Sun, Jun 20, 2010 from Scientific American: Oceans choking on CO2, face deadly changes: study The world's oceans are virtually choking on rising greenhouse gases, destroying marine ecosystems and breaking down the food chain -- irreversible changes that have not occurred for several million years, a new study says.
The changes could have dire consequences for hundreds of millions of people around the globe who rely on oceans for their livelihoods."It's as if the Earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day", said the report's lead-author Australian marine scientist Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. The Australia-U.S. report published in Science magazine on Friday, studied 10 years of marine research and found that climate change was causing major declines in marine ecosystems. Oceans were rapidly warming and acidifying, water circulation was being altered and dead zones within the ocean depths were expanding, said the report.
There has also been a decline in major ocean ecosystems like kelp forests and coral reefs and the marine food chain was breaking down, with fewer and smaller fish and more frequent diseases and pests among marine organisms. ...
I've been told that the four out of five doctors smoke Chesterfields.
Fri, Jun 11, 2010 from Bristol Bay Times: Pollock show boost of bicarbonate in blood No matter what you believe about climate change, ocean chemistry doesn't lie. Even toy store chemistry tests will show that the seas are becoming more acidic, and the off-kilter levels can have a scary impact on sea creatures: it dissolves them.... In tests on one-year old pollock at varying levels of pH, researchers at NOAA Fisheries Newport lab discovered that the fish seemed to compensate for increased [acidity] by boosting levels of bicarbonate in their blood.... "Even if they were absorbing it from sea water, that is energy they are spending on regulating pH that they are not spending on growth and reproduction and foraging," he added. "So either way there was likely an energetic cost to the fish."... The Whiskey Creek Hatchery in Oregon is a major producer of oyster spat for most of the West Coast. For the past two years, the hatchery has had almost complete loss of 10 billion oyster larvae due to acidic water flowing through the holding tanks, depending on the direction of the wind. ...
Sat, May 22, 2010 from Eurepean Science Foundation, via Reuters: 'Double trouble' in acidic, warming oceans - study Acidification of the oceans means "double trouble" for marine life from corals to shellfish since it is adding to stresses caused by global warming, a study showed on Wednesday.
"The oceans are more acidic than they have ever been for at least 20 million years," according to the report by the European Science Foundation. On current trends, seas could be 150 percent more acidic by 2100 than they were in pre-industrial times.
Sea water is acidifying because carbon dioxide, released to the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, is slightly corrosive in water. That makes it harder for creatures such as corals, lobsters, crabs or oysters to build their protective shells.... Among worrying precedents were fossil records of a leap in ocean acidity 55 million years ago that caused a spasm of extinctions of creatures living on the ocean floor, he said. That pulse may have been caused by natural releases of methane. ...
Mon, May 17, 2010 from HuffingtonPost: Deep sea oil plumes, dispersants endanger reefs The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has already spewed plumes over ecologically sensitive reefs, part of a stalled marine sanctuary proposal that would have restrict drilling in a large swath of the northern part of the vital waterway.
Marine scientists fear that two powerful Gulf currents will carry the oil to other reefs. The eastward flowing loop current could spread it about 450 miles to the Florida Keys, while the Louisiana coastal current could move the oil as far west as central Texas.
The depth of the gushing leaks and the use of more than 560,000 gallons of chemicals to disperse the oil, including unprecedented injections deep in the sea, have helped keep the crude beneath the sea surface. Marine scientists say diffusing and sinking the oil helps protect the surface species and the Gulf Coast shoreline but increases the chance of harming deep-sea reefs, which are seen as bellwethers for sea health.... These plumes are being eaten by microbes thousands of feet deep, which removes oxygen from the water.... Studies published in a 2005 National Academy of Sciences report show that oil mixed with dispersants damaged certain corals' reproduction and deformed their larvae. The study concluded the federal government needed to study more before using massive amounts of dispersants. ...
Sun, Apr 4, 2010 from PhysOrg.com: 'Evil twin' threatens world oceans, scientists warn "Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years," the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE).
"This emphasises the urgent need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions."
Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the 'evil twin of global warming', is caused when the CO2 emitted by human activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans. It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global warming.... "Evidence gathered by scientists around the world over the last few years suggests that ocean acidification could represent an equal - or perhaps even greater threat - to the biology of our planet than global warming." ...
Sun, Apr 4, 2010 from Los Angeles Times: Great Barrier Reef rammed by Chinese coal ship Australians on Sunday scrambled to ensure that a Chinese-owned bulk coal carrier that rammed into the Great Barrier Reef would not break apart and seriously damage the planet's largest coral reef.
Peter Garrett, the nation's environment protection minister, told reporters that the federal government is concerned about the impact an oil spill could have on the environmentally sensitive reef, which was selected as a World Heritage site in 1981.
Environmentalists said they were "horrified" at the possible damage the mishap might cause to the ecosystem, which is 1,800 miles long and comprised of more than 3,000 individual reefs, cays and islands -- providing a habitat for countless sea species.
Video taken late Sunday showed the 755-foot vessel stranded about nine miles outside the shipping lane, leaking what seemed to be a streak of oil into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park near Great Keppel Island off the west coast of Queensland state.... The Shen Neng 1, hauling more than 65,000 tons of coal, hit the reef at full speed late Saturday in a restricted zone of the marine park. The impact ruptured the vessel's fuel tanks, prompting Australian officials to activate a national oil spill response plan. ...
Whoops! Sorry officer, I must've taken a wrong turn back there!
Fri, Mar 26, 2010 from Associated Press: Death of Coral Reefs Could Devastate Nations Coral reefs are dying, and scientists and governments around the world are contemplating what will happen if they disappear altogether. The idea positively scares them.
Coral reefs are part of the foundation of the ocean food chain. Nearly half the fish the world eats make their homes around them. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide -- by some estimates, 1 billion across Asia alone -- depend on them for their food and their livelihoods.
If the reefs vanished, experts say, hunger, poverty and political instability could ensue. ...
Sun, Jan 31, 2010 from PhysOrg.com: Coral in Florida Keys suffers lethal hit from cold Bitter cold this month may have wiped out many of the shallow water corals in the Keys. Scientists have only begun assessments, with dive teams looking for "bleaching" that is a telltale indicator of temperature stress in sensitive corals, but initial reports are bleak. The impact could extend from Key Largo through the Dry Tortugas west of Key West, a vast expanse that covers some of the prettiest and healthiest reefs in North America.
Given the depth and duration of frigid weather, Meaghan Johnson, marine science coordinator for The Nature Conservancy, expected to see losses. But she was stunned by what she saw when diving a patch reef 2.5 miles off Harry Harris Park in Key Largo.... Star and brain corals, large species that can take hundreds of years to grow, were as white and lifeless as bones, frozen to death. There were also dead sea turtles, eels and parrotfish littering the bottom....
"Corals didn't even have a chance to bleach. They just went straight to dead," said Johnson, who joined teams of divers last week surveying reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. "It's really ecosystem-wide mortality."...
Cold-water bleaching is unusual, last occurring in 1977, the year it snowed in Miami. It killed hundreds of acres of staghorn and elkhorn corals across the Keys. Neither species has recovered, both becoming the first corals to be federally listed as threatened in 2006.
...
"Ecosystem-wide mortality" -- is that a euphemism?
Mon, Jan 11, 2010 from University of Exeter via ScienceDaily: Coral Can Recover from Climate Change Damage, New Research Suggests ...Scientists and environmentalists have warned that coral reefs may not be able to recover from the damage caused by climate change and that these unique environments could soon be lost forever. Now, this research adds weight to the argument that reducing levels of fishing is a viable way of protecting the world's most delicate aquatic ecosystems....The researchers conducted surveys of ten sites inside and outside marine reserves of the Bahamas over 2.5 years. These reefs have been severely damaged by bleaching and then by hurricane Frances in the summer of 2004. At the beginning of the study, the reefs had an average of 7 percent coral cover. By the end of the project, coral cover in marine protected areas had increased by an average of 19 percent, while reefs in non-reserve sites showed no recovery. ...
Tue, Dec 8, 2009 from The Providence Journal: Scientist says fish can save coral reefs A marine ecologist who has studied some of the most pristine and untouched coral reefs in the world says there is a way to fight back against devastating deaths of coral reefs caused by climate change and warming oceans.
Enric Sala, a former professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and now a National Geographic Fellow, said damaged coral will grow back if it is in a healthy environment with lots of predator fish.
A healthy fish population will graze on algae that kills coral. Filter feeders, such as giant clams, remove harmful microbes from the water. ...
Mon, Oct 26, 2009 from BBC: 'Freezer plan' bid to save coral A meeting in Denmark took evidence from researchers that most coral reefs will not survive even if tough regulations on greenhouse gases are put in place.
Scientists proposed storing samples of coral species in liquid nitrogen.
That will allow them to be reintroduced to the seas in the future if global temperatures can be stabilised.... At this meeting, politicians and scientists acknowledged that global emissions of carbon dioxide are rising so fast that we are losing the fight to save coral and the world must develop an alternative plan. ...
Tue, Oct 13, 2009 from The Australian: Scientists back law to limit farm runoff to Great Barrier Reef SCIENTISTS have backed the Queensland government's crackdown on farm runoffs to the Great Barrier Reef, describing new laws to limit the chemicals on sugar crops and pastures as "the right answer".
Conservation groups have swung behind the measures, after producer organisations and individual farmers branded them unnecessary and a sop to the green lobby.... "The state is taking its responsibility to the reef very seriously ... I think we have to do everything we can."
Marine scientists have warned that vast sections of the reef are threatened by the coral bleaching associated with rising sea temperatures caused by climate change.... Ms Jones's spokesman pointed out that high concentrations of the nutrients associated with fertiliser runoff were being detected up to 50km offshore. ...
Scientists and specialists weighing in on policy? What? Isn't more study needed?
Fri, Sep 4, 2009 from Guardian (UK): How global warming sealed the fate of the world's coral reefs If you thought you had heard enough bad news on the environment and that the situation could not get any worse, then steel yourself. Coral reefs are doomed. The situation is virtually hopeless. Forget ice caps and rising sea levels: the tropical coral reef looks like it will enter the history books as the first major ecosystem wiped out by our love of cheap energy.... "The future is horrific," says Charlie Veron, an Australian marine biologist who is widely regarded as the world's foremost expert on coral reefs. "There is no hope of reefs surviving to even mid-century in any form that we now recognise. If, and when, they go, they will take with them about one-third of the world's marine biodiversity. Then there is a domino effect, as reefs fail so will other ecosystems. This is the path of a mass extinction event, when most life, especially tropical marine life, goes extinct." ...
I wish these scientists would speak in less "technical" language. Oh, and more good news, willya?
Tue, Aug 11, 2009 from Globe and Mail: Crown of Thorns starfish destroying Asian reefs The predator starfish feeds on corals by spreading its stomach over them and using digestive enzymes to liquefy tissue.
The researchers found large numbers of them in Halmahera, Indonesia, which lies at the heart of the Coral Triangle. During a research trip in December, they saw a stretch of reef measuring 10 kilometres in circumference completely wiped out.
"It's quite a stark sight. The crown of thorns choose to eat some species, like staghorn corals, the branching corals disappear and you are left with just a rubble pit," Andrew Baird [said].... Dr. Baird said the outbreak was caused by poor water quality and could be an early warning of widespread reef decline.
"Humans are exacerbating the problem because we put too many nutrients in the water," he said, referring to water pollution caused by sewerage and agriculture fertilizers.
"There are lots of micro-algae and the larvae of the crown of thorns feed on the algae," said Dr. Baird, who was involved in the study. ...
Tue, Jun 16, 2009 from Carnegie Institution, via EurekAlert: Global sunscreen won't save corals Emergency plans to counteract global warming by artificially shading the Earth from incoming sunlight might lower the planet's temperature a few degrees, but such "geoengineering" solutions would do little to stop the acidification of the world oceans that threatens coral reefs and other marine life, report the authors of a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters*. The culprit is atmospheric carbon dioxide, which even in a cooler globe will continue to be absorbed by seawater, creating acidic conditions.... Rising levels of carbon dioxide make seawater more acidic, leading to lower mineral saturation. Recent research has indicated that continued carbon dioxide emissions will cause coral reefs to begin dissolving within a few decades, putting the survival of these ecosystems at extreme risk.
Geoengineering's minimal effect on ocean acidification adds another factor to the debate over the advisability of intentionally tampering with the climate system. ...
You mean there's no universal technological fix? But that's unamerican!
Tue, May 19, 2009 from UPI: Study predicts worldwide coral catastrophe An Australian-led World Wild Life study predicts worldwide catastrophic losses of coral by the end of this century due to climate change.
The WWF-commissioned study, led by University of Queensland Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, determined coral reefs could disappear entirely from the Coral Triangle region of the Pacific Ocean, thereby threatening the food supply and livelihoods for about 100 million people.
Researchers said averting such a catastrophe will depend on quick and effective global action on climate change, as well as implementation of regional solutions to problems of over-fishing and pollution.... ...
Mon, May 11, 2009 from ARC, via EurekAlert: Rules proposed to save the world's coral reefs An international team of scientists has proposed a set of basic rules to help save the world's imperiled coral reefs from ultimate destruction.... The key to saving threatened coral ecosystems is to maintain the links (connectivity) between reefs allowing larvae to flow between them and re-stock depleted areas, the team led by Pew Fellow Dr Laurence McCook of Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) argues.
"Ecological connectivity is critically important to the resilience of coral reefs and other ecosystems to which they are linked," says Dr McCook. "The ability of reefs to recover after disturbances or resist new stresses depends critically on the supply of larvae available to reseed populations of key organisms, such as fish and corals. For reefs to survive and prosper they must in turn be linked with other healthy reefs." ...
Wonder what the acidifying ocean will have to say about this?
Thu, Apr 23, 2009 from London Guardian: Damaged Barrier Reef coral makes 'spectacular' recovery Sections of coral reef in Australia's Great Barrier Reef have made a "spectacular" recovery from a devastating bleaching event three years ago, marine scientists say.
In 2006, high sea temperatures caused severe coral bleaching in the Keppell Islands, in the southern part of the reef — the largest coral reef system in the world. The damaged reefs were then covered by a single species of seaweed which threatened to suffocate the coral and cause further loss.
A "lucky combination" of rare circumstances has meant the reef has been able to make a recovery. Abundant corals have reestablished themselves in a single year... ...
Thu, Mar 19, 2009 from New Scientist: Fish numbers drop as reefs take a bashing The battering taken by Caribbean coral reefs is finally taking its toll on the fish that dwell in them, a large new study suggests.
"We are seeing striking declines that are amazingly consistent across a huge area and very different types of fish," says Michelle Paddack of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. "The losses affect both large fish that are hunted by fishers and small fish that aren't."... Starting from the mid 1990s, in all regions covered by the studies, fish numbers have fallen by between 2.7 and 6 percent per year.
Paddack suspects that as well as overfishing, coral demise from disease and bleaching is to blame, together with pollution from coastal development. ...
I say we just hoover them all up and start over. Let evolution sort 'em out.
Mon, Mar 9, 2009 from Mongabay: Seven new species of deep sea coral discovered In the depths of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, which surrounds ten Hawaiian islands, scientists discovered seven new species of bamboo coral. Supported by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the discoveries are even more surprising in that six of the seven species may represent entirely new genus of coral.
"These discoveries are important, because deep-sea corals support diverse seafloor ecosystems and also because these corals may be among the first marine organisms to be affected by ocean acidification," said Richard Spinrad, NOAA's assistant administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. ...
Mon, Mar 9, 2009 from Carnegie Institution, via EurekAlert: Coral reefs may start dissolving Stanford, CA— Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on ocean water are making it increasingly difficult for coral reefs to grow, say scientists. A study to be published online March 13, 2009 in Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem warns that if carbon dioxide reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world. ... Prospects for reefs are even gloomier when the effects of coral bleaching are included in the model. Coral bleaching refers to the loss of symbiotic algae that are essential for healthy growth of coral colonies. Bleaching is already a widespread problem, and high temperatures are among the factors known to promote bleaching. According to their model the researchers calculated that under present conditions 30 percent of reefs have already undergone bleaching and that at CO2 levels of 560 ppm (twice pre-industrial levels) the combined effects of acidification and bleaching will reduce the calcification rates of all the world's reefs by 80 percent or more.... "If we don't change our ways soon, in the next few decades we will destroy what took millions of years to create." ...
Unfortunately, that's what we do every day when we drive in to work.
Tue, Feb 24, 2009 from Science Alert (Australia): Warm oceans slow coral growth It's official: the biggest and most robust corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have slowed their growth by more than 14 per cent since the "tipping point" year of 1990. Evidence is strong that the decline has been caused by a synergistic combination of rising sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification.... "It is cause for extreme concern that such changes are already evident, with the relatively modest climate changes observed to date, in the world's best protected and managed coral reef ecosystem," according to AIMS scientist and co-author Dr Janice Lough.... "The data suggest that this severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least 400 years," said AIMS scientist and principal author Dr Glenn De'ath. ...
I don't wanna hear no scientists saying "severe and sudden" or "extreme concern" about anything.
Fri, Jan 30, 2009 from BBC: Acid oceans 'need urgent action' The world's marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.
More than 150 top marine researchers have voiced their concerns through the "Monaco Declaration", which warns that changes in acidity are accelerating.... It says pH levels are changing 100 times faster than natural variability. ... The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as "the other CO2 problem", could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.
They also say that it could lead to substantial changes in commercial fish stocks, threatening food security for millions of people.
"The chemistry is so fundamental and changes so rapid and severe that impacts on organisms appear unavoidable," said Dr James Orr, chairman of the symposium.
"The questions are now how bad will it be and how soon will it happen." ...
Sat, Jan 3, 2009 from Science Daily (US): Hot Southern Summer Threatens Coral With Massive Bleaching Event A widespread and severe coral bleaching episode is predicted to cause immense damage to some of the world's most important marine environments over the next few months. A report from the US Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, which lies adjacent to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle, a 5.4 million square kilometre expanse of ocean in the Indo-Pacific which is considered the centre of the world's marine life.
"This forecast bleaching episode will be caused by increased water temperatures and is the kind of event we can expect on a regular basis if average global temperatures rise above 2 degrees," said Richard Leck, Climate Change Strategy Leader for WWF's Coral Triangle Program.... The bleaching, predicted to occur between now and February, could have a devastating impact on coral reef ecosystems, killing coral and destroying food chains. There would be severe impacts for communities in Australia and the region, who depend on the oceans for their livelihoods. ...
Thu, Jan 1, 2009 from Guardian (UK): Slowdown of coral growth extremely worrying, say scientists Coral growth across the Great Barrier Reef has suffered a "severe and sudden" slowdown since 1990 that is unprecedented in the last four centuries, according to scientists.
The researchers analysed the growth rates of 328 coral colonies on 69 individual reefs that make up the 1,250 mile-long Great Barrier Reef, off north-east Australia. They found that the rate at which the corals were laying down calcium in their skeletons dropped by 14.2 percent between 1990 and 2005.... the most probable explanation for the drop in the growth rate of the corals' calcium carbonate skeletons is acidification of the water due to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. More acid water makes it more difficult for the coral polyps to grab the minerals they need to build their skeletons from the sea water. ...
Wed, Dec 10, 2008 from AFP: Fifth of world's corals already dead, say experts Almost a fifth of the planet's coral reefs have died and carbon emissions are largely to blame, according to an NGO study released Wednesday.
The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, warned that on current trends, growing levels of greenhouse gases will destroy many of the remaining reefs over the next 20 to 40 years.
"If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the organisation's coordinator. ...
Any way to turn back time, so we might learn from our mistakes?
Tue, Nov 11, 2008 from The Daily Climate: The ocean's acid test ...according to a new report issued today by Oceana ... today’s ocean chemistry is already hostile for many creatures fundamental to the marine food web. The world’s oceans – for so long a neat and invisible sink for humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions – are about to extract a price for all that waste.
The effects are not local: Entire ecosystems threaten to literally crumble away as critters relying on calcium carbonate for a home – from corals to mollusks to the sea snail – have a harder time manufacturing their shells. Corals shelter millions of species worldwide, while sea snails account for upwards of 45 percent of the diet of pink salmon. ...
For Whom the Shell Tolls....? it tolls for us all!
Mon, Oct 27, 2008 from Guardian (UK): Climate deal may be too late to save coral reefs, scientists warn A new global deal on climate change will come too late to save most of the world's coral reefs, according to a US study that suggests major ecological damage to the oceans is now inevitable.
Emissions of carbon dioxide are making seawater so acidic that reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research by the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California suggests. Even ambitious targets to stabilise greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, as championed by Britain and Europe to stave off dangerous climate change, still place more than 90 percent of coral reefs in jeopardy. ...
Fri, Oct 24, 2008 from Christian Science Monitor: Corals gain climate-change shield Rare species of staghorn corals may bear some good news for reef conservation: It appears that some rare types of staghorns can readily breed with related species, creating hybrids that may be far more resilient to climate change or other stresses than anyone thought.... "This is good news, to the extent that it suggests that corals may have evolved genetic strategies for survival in unusual niches," notes Zoe Richards, who led the effort. ...
Tue, Oct 7, 2008 from Scotland on Sunday: Mexico tourism boom kills coral quicker than climate change Human waste, like that from Cancun's hotels and night spots, aggravates threats to coral worldwide, such as overzealous fishing, which hurts stocks of fish that eat reef-damaging algae....
Across the Caribbean, the amount of reef surface covered by live coral has fallen about 80 percent in the past 30 years, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network says. ...
Thu, Sep 18, 2008 from Daily Express (Malaysia): The clams are nearly gone Giant clams in Sabah waters have been severely depleted due to overfishing, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Borneo Marine Research Institute Director Professor Dr Saleem Mustafa said. He said these unique clams were being harvested for their adductor muscle considered a delicacy and massive shells which are used for making handicrafts.... "Giant clams are essentially coral reef animals, and since corals are bleaching as a result of destructive fishing practices and climate change, the effect is evidently brought to bear on the giant clams." ...
Wed, Sep 10, 2008 from Telegraph.co.uk: Over-fishing, not climate change, is greatest danger to world's oceans He said: "Across the 21 different ecosystems we have looked at, direct human actions have long been exceeding -- and will long continue to exceed -- the effects of climate change in almost every case.
"That is not to say that climate change isn't happening or is unimportant. "Coral reefs are threatened by oceanic warming and the release of carbon frozen and buried in wetlands has major implications for the Earth.
"But the demise of fish stocks through fishing and decline of rivers through excessive off-take are just two dramatic examples of how people are directly changing aquatic ecosystems and threatening the natural services that they deliver." ...
Heck, that's just a natural cycle. Oh, and just a theory.
Sun, Aug 31, 2008 from Public Library of Science via ScienceDaily: Protection Zones In The Wrong Place To Prevent Coral Reef Collapse "Conservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warn... Current protection zones – or 'No-take areas' (NTAs) – were set up to protect fish in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before climate change was a major issue." ...
Can't we just move the endangered coral to the protection zones?
Wed, Aug 27, 2008 from PLoS ONE, via Power-Boat World: World's Marine Parks 'May Not Save Corals' They warn that many existing 'no take areas' (NTAs) in the Indian Ocean and around the world, while effective in protecting local fish, may not be much help in enabling reefs to recover from major coral bleaching events caused by ocean warming.
The research, published in the journal PLoS ONE, is the largest study of its kind ever carried out, covering 66 sites in seven countries in the Indian Ocean and spanning over a decade.
...
Sat, Jul 26, 2008 from Time Magazine: Coral Reefs Face Extinction "You don't have to be a marine biologist to understand the importance of corals -- just ask any diver. The tiny underwater creatures are the architects of the beautiful, electric-colored coral reefs that lie in shallow tropical waters around the world. Divers swarm to them not merely for their intrinsic beauty, but because the reefs play host to a wealth of biodiversity unlike anywhere else in the underwater world. Coral reefs are home to more than 25 percent of total marine species. Take out the corals, and there are no reefs -- remove the reefs, and entire ecosystems collapse." ...
You don't have to be a marine biologist, but you can play one on tv!
Wed, Jul 9, 2008 from New York Times: Corals, Already in Danger, Are Facing New Threat From Farmed Algae Corals are being covered and smothered to death by a bushy seaweed that is so tough even algae-grazing fish avoid it. It settles in the reef's crevices that fish once called home, driving them away.... [I]ntroduced in the past three decades to 20 countries around the world from Tonga to Zanzibar and the result in most of them has been failure or worse. The alga K. alvarezii invaded the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve in south India a decade after commercial cultivation began in nearby Panban. "No part of the coral reef was visible in most of the invaded sites, where it doomed entire colonies," the journal Current Science has reported. ...
Mon, Jul 7, 2008 from USA Today: 'Invasive' humans threaten U.S. coral reefs "Half of all U.S. coral reefs, the center of marine life in the Pacific and Caribbean oceans, are either in poor or fair condition, a federal agency warns today.
The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration places much of the blame on human activities and warns of further oceanwide decline.
Reefs closer to cities were found to suffer poorer health, damaged by trash, overfishing and pollution." ...
Those pesky humans. Can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em!
Mon, Jun 16, 2008 from Penn State University/NOAA: 8-day undersea mission begins experiment to improve coral reef restoration Scientists have begun an eight-day mission, in which they are living and working at 60 feet below the sea surface, to determine why some species of coral colonies survive transplanting after a disturbance, such as a storm, while other colonies die. Coral reefs worldwide are suffering from the combined effects of hurricanes, global warming, and increased boat traffic and pollution. As a result, their restoration has become a priority among those who are concerned. ...
Sat, Jun 14, 2008 from San Francisco Chronicle: Sunscreen's a bleach for aquatic life "Plopping down on the beach slathered from head to toe with sunscreen may help with the carcinoma, but the inevitable cooling dip in the ocean won't be good for the coral. The creams that sunbathers use to ward off cancer-causing ultraviolet rays cause bleaching in coral reefs and seem to accumulate in fish and other aquatic life, according to recent studies." ...
Fri, Mar 21, 2008 from Science Daily (US): Dissolved Organic Matter May Influence Coral Health The composition of dissolved organic matter surrounding Florida Keys coral reefs has likely changed in recent decades due to growing coastal populations.
Bacterial communities endemic to healthy corals could change depending on the amount and type of natural and man-made dissolved organic matter in seawater, report researchers... "When coastal ecosystems are physically altered, the natural flow of dissolved organic material to nearby coral ecosystems is disrupted with potentially harmful consequences for the corals," said Shank, assistant professor of marine science. ...
Unlike dogs, it looks like coral systems don't like rolling in shit. Strange. Isn't that a nutrient?
Mon, Mar 17, 2008 from USA Today: Belize coral reef: gorgeous but threatened A potent mix of coastal development, tourism, overfishing, pollution and climate change has damaged an estimated 40 percent of the Belize reef system, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that attracts more than a third of Belize's 850,000 annual visitors.
A recent string of "bleaching events" — where vibrantly hued coral turn a skeletal white — occurred when a spike in water temperatures that scientists associate with global warming expelled symbiotic algae living inside corals.
Worldwide, experts calculate that nearly 50 percent of coral reefs are under imminent or long-term threat of collapse through human pressures; 20 percent have been destroyed.... But the island's dense mangroves and coastal forests, onetime shelters for jaguars, crocodiles and juvenile fish bound for the coral reef a half-mile offshore, are giving way to condos and resorts that have drawn the likes of John Grisham and the stars of the 2001, Ambergris-based reality show Temptation Island. ...
Belize? Belize? That's supposed to be untouched paradise! What is going on in this world!?
Thu, Feb 14, 2008 from Associated Press: Study says people impact all oceans "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop pristine, might be the lament of today's Ancient Mariner. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the planet, and every single spot has been affected by people in some way. Researchers studying 17 different activities ranging from fishing to pollution compiled a new map showing how and where people have impacted the seas. Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up, the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me," said lead author Ben Halpern, an assistant research scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara." ...
Wed, Jan 23, 2008 from Marianas Variety (Micronesia): 2008 is International Year of the Coral Reef "DIFFERENT environmental groups and government agencies gathered on Friday at the SandCastle of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Saipan to declare 2008 as the International Year of the Coral Reef.... The symposium also recognized the medicinal value of reef organisms, and the different threats to coral reefs such as improper watershed development, sedimentation, marine debris, over-fishing, global warming, among other problems."
...
Not unlike the Lifetime Achievement Awards they give to great underappreciated actors, hopefully before they die. Note: 2007 was "International Polar Year."
Thu, Jan 10, 2008 from ScienceDaily: Humans Have Caused Profound Changes In Caribbean Coral Reefs "Coral reefs in the Caribbean have suffered significant changes due to the proximal effects of a growing human population, reports a new study. "It is well acknowledged that coral reefs are declining worldwide but the driving forces remain hotly debated," said author Camilo Mora at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada...The study showed clearly that the number of people living in close proximity to coral reefs is the main driver of the mortality of corals, loss of fish biomass and increases in macroalgae abundance. "The continuing degradation of coral reefs may be soon beyond repair, if threats are not identified and rapidly controlled," Mora said." ...
As Yogi the cartoon bear would say: "Boo Boo, it's déjà vú-boo all over again."
Fri, Dec 14, 2007 from Science Daily (US): Carbon Crisis lethal for coral reefs "If world leaders do not immediately engage in a race against time to save the Earth's coral reefs, these vital ecosystems will not survive the global warming and acidification predicted for later this century. That is the conclusion of a group of marine scientists from around the world in a major new study published in the journal Science on Dec. 13.... "This crisis is on our doorstep, not decades away. We have little time in which to respond, but respond, we must!" says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, lead author of the Science paper, The Carbon Crisis: Coral Reefs under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification." ...
When any highly respected scientist uses an (!) exclamation mark, perk up your ears. They were trained in Respected Scientist School never to do that.
