If only coral researchers read skeptic blogs, they’d know that corals have been getting bleached and wrecked by cyclones for millions of years.
They have adaptable genes, honed by 500 million years of natural selection, plus epigenetic tricks, and with safe zones to seed recovery.
The Great Barrier Reef spans 2,000 kilometers and five degrees Celsius from 27°C (80.6°F) to 32°C (89.6°F) and we’re still finding reefs we didn’t even know about.
The pH swings on a daily basis, and fish do better when it does. One coral has adapted to ocean “acidification” in six months. Other fish remarkably adapted from salt to freshwater in just fifty years.
As Peter Ridd says: Of all the ecosystems in the world, the reef is one that’s best at adapting to climate change.
So once again, corals have recovered — and yet the “experts” who wear their dogma covered glasses didn’t see it coming.
‘Teeming with life’: New hope for the Great Barrier Reef as the island shows remarkable coral growth
By Melissa Martin and Erin Semmler, ABC
One Tree Island was lashed by Cyclone Hamish in 2009, destroying much of the island’s coral.
In the five years following the cyclone, no metabolic recovery was detected on the reef and by 2014 calcification of the coral had declined by 75 percent.
But things changed dramatically between 2014 and 2017 when Ms. Davis and her team at the National Marine Science Centre found the coral system calcification increased four-fold.
“We found that the coral ecosystem has completely recovered from this cyclone event after eight years,” Ms. Davis said.
Commenter Pat points out that the Brisbane Times picked this up a week before the ABC.
In other news, environmentalists are doing their best to destroy tourism:
She said tourists are more worried about the reef than previously because of the way it is portrayed in the media.
“Questions I get asked everyday, they say, ‘so is the reef dead? Is this bleached here?’” she said.
Things the ABC, BBC, and CBC might forget to tell you about coral reefs:
- In some places, ocean acidification happens every single day. No biggie.
- Scientists surprised that reef that survived the hotter Holocene is already recovering from 2016 bleaching
- Corals already have the genes to survive another 250 years of climate change
- Corals survive 542m years of supervolcano, asteroids, 125m sea-level change only to go extinct any year now
- Researchers astonished: Coral reefs thriving in a more “acidic” ocean
- Corals use epigenetic tricks to adapt to warmer and “more acidic” water
- *Surprise* Great Barrier Reef has 112 tough spots that survive and replenish the rest
- Great Barrier Reef: 5% bleached, not 93% says a new report “discrepancy phenomenal”
- One vulnerable coral type adapts to ocean acidification in just 6 months
- Fish behave better when artificial tanks mimic these natural daily swings.
- A bit less alkalinity is good news for hundreds of marine species.
- Some coral reefs thrive in a more acidic ocean
- Hottest reefs on Earth make a nice home for corals?
- There is a big safety margin: farmed fish seem to cope fine with CO2 levels that are even fifty times higher than today.
- We only discovered coral bleaching in the 1980s but it’s probably been going on for millions of years.
- Ocean Acidification — a little bit less alkalinity could be a good thing: 1103 studies show that a slight lowering of pH promotes growth in marine life.
- The world is going to hell but we’re finding new coral reefs everywhere…
- The chemistry of ocean pH and “acidification”
- NOAA scientists admit in private that they can’t name any place affected by ocean acidification
- Life adapts — fish evolved from salt to fresh water in just fifty years
- Look out! Climate change makes fish reckless
Read rest at JoNova
