Archives par mot-clé : Great Barrier Reef

The State of the Great Barrier Reef 2024(.pdf)

by P. Ridd, Mar 2204, in AustralianEnvironmentFoundation


Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What is the Great Barrier Reef? 4
Chapter 2: The Great Barrier Reef and its coral: The Data. 11
2.1 The area and number of coral reefs on the Great Barrier Reef 11
2.2 Coral Cover: the amount of coral on the Great Barrier Reef. 11
2.3 Coral growth rates (calcification) 19
Chapter 3: Hot-water ‘bleaching’ on the Great Barrier Reef 23
3.1 Introduction 23
3.2 Are bleaching events a new phenomenon? 23
3.3 Corals and their algal friends. 25
3.4 Bleaching is not usually lethal: it is a survival strategy. 27
3.5 Analysis of past GBR bleaching events. 29
3.6: Excuses for Failed Bleaching Predictions 31
3.7 Corals Like it Hot. 33
Chapter 4: Impact of agriculture on coral 35
4.1 Introduction. 35
4.2 Water flushing time of the GBR. 36
4.3: Nutrient ‘pollution’. 38
4.4 Sediment ‘pollution’. 42
4.5 Pesticides. 49
Chapter 5: Stretching the GBR to the coast. 54
5.1 Introduction. 54
5.2 Inshore Reefs. 54
5.3 Mangrove Swamps. 61
5.4 Seagrass beds. 63
5.5 Coastal Freshwater ecosystems. 68
5.6 Importance of Coastal ecosystems to the Great Barrier Reef. 69
Chapter 6 Summary and conclusions 71
Appendix Usefulness of coral cover measurements. 74
About the Author 79
Acknowledgments

The Great Barrier Reef could Die This Year?

by E. Worrall, Feb18, 2024 in WUWT


 

The Great Barrier Reef is in no danger of dying, at most it will change location a little. The reef is composed of an organism which has survived for at least 200 million years, through unimaginably catastrophic global extinction events and disasters, including the asteroid which killed the dinosaurs.

The reason that coral is so good at surviving great upheavals is that while adult coral is immobile, coral spawn is immensely mobile.

Every so often corals spawn. Corals produce immense clouds of microscopic eggs and sperms, which germinate into highly mobile microscopic coral larvae which seek out new places to colonise.

The Great Barrier Reef itself has moved location countless times over the millennia, the reef has only been at its current location for a few thousand years. Some Australian shorelines are composed of coral which lived thousands of years ago, during the Holocene Optimum, when the sea level was significantly higher than today. The Great Barrier Reef had and has no trouble changing location when climate change impacts sea conditions, such as when the world cooled after the end of the Holocene Optimum, and the sea waters retreated to today’s level.

And in fact, Australian coral coverage hit a record high a record high in 2022 – as an organism which is responsive to conditions, coral cover fluctuates wildly when conditions change.

Happy Easter, Happy End of the 2023 Cyclone Season at the Great Barrier Reef

by J. Maroshasy, Apr 11, 2023 in WUWT


Year on year, however, contrary to human-caused global warming theory, neither the number nor intensity of cyclones has increased at the Great Barrier Reef. The available data shows that there has been a steady decline in both the number and intensity of cyclones since the 1970s.

This is probably why coral cover, as measured around the perimeter of coral reefs, is reported to be so high. The most recent Australian Institute of Marine Science survey reported coral cover to be the highest in 36 years. Cyclones can be incredibly damaging to corals, with fewer cyclones there will be more coral.

Contrary to expectations, this last 2022-23 season has also been quiet, with few cyclones. The exact number will hopefully be published at the Bureau’s cyclone page, that is here. But I doubt there will be a media release.

 

See also: Bellies Full of Coral

Chicken Little Propaganda Dressed Up As Science

by P.  Ridd, Nov 26, 2022 in InstitueofPublicAffairs


ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE AUSTRALIAN

The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have delivered their ­biennial dose of depression about the climate, but their report ignores a slew of positive environmental changes.

The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have delivered their ­biennial dose of depression about the climate in their latest State of the Climate report. The climate has warmed by 1.5C and there is barely a single benefit – it is all ­disaster.

It is often said, “if it is too good to be true, it probably is” and you are being conned. What about too bad to be true? Can a gently warming climate have no significant benefits at all? The only marginally encouraging part of the report is about northern Australia. There might have been a slight reduction in cyclone numbers, and there has been a bit more rain in the recent decades.

Apart from that, the report reads like the Book of Exodus – one disaster after another. Only the frogs and boils are missing.

But it is significant that the period when Egyptians were building pyramids, which was hotter than today’s climate, is often called the Holocene Climatic Optimum. The word “optimum” was an indication that scientists working in the era before climate alarmism could see some advantage of a warmer climate.

A sure sign that the report tries too hard to find disaster is when it discusses coral bleaching and the Great Barrier Reef. It stresses that there have been four bleaching events in the past six years, which it implies were devastating. But for some reason the report fails to mention that this year the reef recorded its highest amount of coral since records began in 1985.

This proves that all the hype about the coral loss from bleaching was greatly exaggerated. But the report writers were obviously ­untroubled by the contradictory evidence. They ignored it.

The Great Barrier Reef Is Doing Great; People Should Know

by P. Ridd, Aug 11, 2022 in CO2Coalition


Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is, well, great. But the popular media won’t report this good news, so I will.

The GBR is made up of approximately 3,000 reefs covering an area nearly the size of California off Australia’s eastern coast. The condition of its coral is frequently referenced as an indicator of the reef’s health, regularly in the context of the supposed damage global warming is doing to the planet.

The reef now has more coral than any time since records began in 1986, according to  the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). There is roughly 20 percent more coral on the GBR than last year, which itself equaled a previous record year. All three major regions of the reef now have excellent coral cover and AIMS states that two regions are at record breaking high levels.

As of the latest 2022 survey of the GBR, coral covered 34 percent of the seabed, double the lowest coverage recorded in 2012. There are many types of ecosystem on reefs other than coral – 34% is a remarkably high number.

This coral health exists despite four supposedly massively destructive and unprecedented bleaching events striking parts of the reef since 2016 – all allegedly due to climate change and one as recently as this year. Coral reefs typically take five to 10 years to recover from major damage, so how can GBR be enjoying such good health this soon? Is it possible that reef-science institutions exaggerated the damage in the first place to advance the global warming narrative? Perhaps.

CNN Pushes Coral Apocalypse As Great Barrier Reef Shows Record Growth

by H.S. Sterling, Aug 5, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch


A new report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) shows the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) set new records for extent this year.

Sadly, in a story titled “Parts of Great Barrier Reef record highest amount of coral in 36 years,” CNN tried to turn this good news contained in the headline into a climate cautionary tale. [bold, links added]

According to the AIMS annual report, the northern and central regions of the 2,300 km GBR ecosystem have the most coral since the surveys began 36 years ago.

As CNN notes, an AIMS survey of 87 sections of the GBR found that between August 2021 and May 2022, average hard coral cover in the upper region and central areas of the reef increased by around one-third.

AIMS CEO Dr. Paul Hardisty told CNN that the report shows the GBR can “recover from mass bleaching and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish that feed on coral.”

One could be forgiven for missing this good news since CNN spent just a few paragraphs discussing the GBR’s expansion.

More than two-thirds of CNN’s story talked about the threat posed to the GBR from recent bleaching events purportedly driven by climate change.

CNN’s story largely ignored the fact that most of the GBR’s coral colonies impacted by bleaching had recovered, as the AIMS report documents.

In a press release from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) commenting on the AIMS report its director, Benny Peiser, Ph.D., said, “This is just the latest example of empirical data making a mockery of the catastrophists. For how much longer do they think they can get away with it?”

The GWPF recently released a study discussing the positive health of coral reefs in general, by Peter Ridd, Ph.D., a long-time researcher on the GBR and coral reefs.

..;

The Great Barrier Reef Is Strong, So Stop The Scare Campaign

by  P.  Ridd, Aug 5, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch


The latest data on the coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef, produced by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, should be a cause for celebration.

Church bells should be ringing and children given a day off from school. AIMS says two of the three main regions of the reef are at record-breaking high levels. [bold, links added]

The other region is at record-equaling levels (once uncertainty margins are taken into account).

AIMS, which has been releasing data on the reef every year since 1985, does not give the aggregate of coral cover for the entire reef; it stopped doing that in 2017.

So I have done it for AIMS, and the reef as a whole is at record high levels.

This result is proof that many scientific institutions have been misleading the public about the state of the reef.

They claimed we had four devastating and unprecedented bleaching events since 2016.

So much bleaching, death, and destruction has supposedly never happened before and is because of climate change – and now we have a record-high coral cover.

Official data confirms reef in rude good heath

by P. Homewood, Aug 4 , 2022 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


Official data released today reveals that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is in excellent health, with coral cover reaching record levels for the second consecutive year.

The increase will be surprising to members of the public, who are regularly hit with scare stories about coral bleaching and false tales about a reef in long-term decline.

A new note, published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, explains that the data shows clearly how a handful of coral bleaching events that have affected the reef since 2016 have had very limited impact on overall coral cover.

Peter Ridd: It’s the science that’s rotten, not the Great Barrier Reef

by P. Homewood, Dec 7, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has released its latest report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef. It has turned up the volume by one notch, claiming the threat to the reef has gone from “significant concern” to “critical”. It blames climate change, agricultural pollution, coastal development, industry, mining, shipping, overfishing, disease, problematic native species, coal dust — you name it, it is killing the reef.

But the report is just a rehash of old, mostly wrong or misleading information produced by generally untrustworthy scientific institutions with an activist agenda and no commitment to quality assurance.

It is remarkable that the world has been convinced that one of its most pristine ecosystems is on its last legs. Part of the problem is that, being underwater and a long way from the coast, very few people visit the reef. The truth is hidden. Those of us in North Queensland living adjacent to the reef, and tourists from elsewhere, can report the water is iridescent clear blue and totally unpolluted. The fish and coral are fabulous.

Measuring Old Corals & Coral Reefs (Part 1)

by J. Marohasy, Nov 29, 2020 in WUWT


Fundamental to science is measurement. It is a way of objectively assessing something, anything, even the state of a coral reef, even of an individual coral. Historically coral growth rates were measured by coring the really old massive Porites.

Like tree rings in temperate forests, the massive old Porites can be cored to see the banding and from this it is possible to calculate coral calcification rates which are a measure of the growth rate of individual corals.

Peter Ridd has been asking for some quality assurance of so many of the measurements relating to Great Barrier Reef health, including coral growth rates. Key Australian institutions have responded by stonewalling, and in the case of James Cook University, actually sacking him. After two rounds in the federal courts his appeal against his dismissal is finally going to the High Court of Australia, with the next hearing probably in February 2021. While the lawyers are preoccupied with Peter’s rights, or otherwise, to academic freedom and freedom of speech, my concern is whether Peter is actually telling the truth when he says that the Great Barrier Reef is resilient and definitely not dying from coral bleaching, though there is a problem with the integrity of the science.

 

CRYING WOLF OVER THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

by Peter Ridd, August 12, 2019 in GWPF


The scare stories about the Great Barrier Reef started in the 1960’s when scientist first started work on the reef. They have been crying wolf ever since.

Scientists from James Cook University have just published a paper on the bleaching and death of corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and were surprised that the death rate was less than they expected because of the adaptability of corals to changing temperatures. It appears as though they exaggerated their original claims and are quietly backtracking. To misquote Oscar Wilde, to exaggerate once is a misfortune, to do it twice looks like carelessness, but to do it repeatedly looks like unforgivable systemic unreliability by some of our major science organisations.

It is a well-known phenomenon that corals can adapt very rapidly to high temperatures and that if you heat corals in one year, they tend to be less susceptible in future years to overheating. It is the reason why corals are one of the least likely species to be affected by climate change, irrespective of whether you believe the climate is changing by natural fluctuations or from human influence.