In 2003, researchers declared Coral Castles dead.
Posted on 08/22/2016 9:31:15 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
From the “global warming and ocean acidification will kill everything, forever” and the “nature always finds a way” department comes this inconvenient truth.
Back From The Dead: Giant Coral Reef That ‘Died’ In 2003 Teeming With Life Again
In 2003, researchers declared Coral Castles dead.
On the floor of a remote island lagoon halfway between Hawaii and Fiji, the giant reef site had been devastated by unusually warm water. Its remains looked like a pile of drab dinner plates tossed into the sea. Research dives in 2009 and 2012 had shown little improvement in the coral colonies.
Then in 2015, a team of marine biologists was stunned and overjoyed to find the giant coral reef once again teeming with life. But the rebound came with a big question: Could the enormous and presumably still fragile coral survive what would be the hottest year on record? This month, the Massachusetts-based research team finished a new exploration of the reefs in the secluded Phoenix Islands, a tiny Pacific archipelago, and were thrilled by what they saw. When they splashed out of an inflatable dinghy to examine Coral Castles closely, they were greeted with a vista of bright greens and purples — unmistakable signs of life. –Karen Weintraub, The New York Times, 15 August 2016
In 1998, a heatwave, which raised ocean temperatures, had caused corals worldwide to go a deathly white – a process called bleaching – and die. The single bleaching event of 1998 killed nearly 16% of the world’s corals. When Dr Peter Mumby had visited Tivaru on the Rangiroa lagoon six months later, he’d found a vast majority of the region’s prolific Porites coral, normally the hardiest of coral species, had followed suit. Based on the known growing rates for the species, Mumby predicted it would take the Porites nearly 100 years to recover, not 15. “Our projections were completely wrong,” he says. “Sometimes it is really nice to be proven wrong as a scientist, and this was a perfect example of that.” –Jane Palmer, BBC, 6 September 2014
I don’t know where in the world this has been the hottest year on record, but certainly not here in Maine, or in New England as a whole.
Crown of Thorns starfish can also cause a lot of damage to coral reefs.
Environmental whackos will be devastated at the news that ‘dead’ coral reefs are able to regenerate and come to life once again. Takes away part of the support for their doomsday scenarios that man is killing the environment.
As it cures and the tank chemistry cycles away from toxic ammonia, the rock begins to come alive again. All sorts of polyps and feather dusters begin to grow from rock that stunk to high heaven. Sometimes even patches of coral begin to recolonize to rock.
Underwater photography without corrective filters leads to washed out colors in the image.
You are very kind.
The problem is the publishers.
I submitted a story once and the publisher sent back a rejection letter that went something like,
“Thank you for your submission. We find that there is no market for your type of story at this time. We are, however, looking for stories about billionaire boys who want to be wizards and are performing sado-masochistic acts with deer who are peeing in the forest.”
The old rule is to write what you know about, and I’m an expert with most of that, but my heart just wouldn’t be in it.
Right now I’m working on a love story about nematodes.
It was only “mostly” dead...
He acts as though it’s rare for science to be wrong. And that’s wrong, too.
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a giant nuclear furnace that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
Somewhat like saying that someone who headed West out of Wilmington, NC on I-40 an hour ago is in Los Angeles?
Yep, great analogy. But lets be generous and call it Vegas...:-) (The crap shoot angle and all that...perfect match for the AGM scam.)
Answer: They don't. They plan to control lesser-than-specks who aren't in Congress.
It’s it’s ... it’s like life goes in cycles!
Corals produce zillions of eggs every season. sooner or later some of them do fine in different temperature; then THEY produce zillions of eggs and sperm. And *poof* the coral is back.
Had the same problem in my 400gal reef tray tank. A?C was out for 4 days mid July in FL. All coral died. Now, one month later it is all returning, polyps everywhere.
CO2 from underwater volcano activity is now speculated to dwarf human CO2 emissions. The warm equatorial water in 1998 was due to El Nino. And conservation of mass and energy imply that if one area warmed, another must have cooled. Watch ice dramatically increase this winter in the upper northern hemisphere. As an El Nino in 2015/16 caused our current fading El Nino atmospheric conditions.
A geologist friend of mine has said something similar for years. But that “conservation of energy” rule only applies to closed systems, mind you. An outside source, say...THE SUN...or core heat of Earth, could turn any theory right upside down... my best guess is that the overall complexity of the system still defies “computer models”. (All of that and a quarter will buy you 15 minutes at the parking meter...in a cheap town...)
If a computer could truly model life then you could have some ridiculous Star Trek TNG holodeck episode as reality! I seem to remember such an episode.
Never mind “life”...just our surroundings are complex beyond current “models”...the holodeck would be an easier task. And we’re not even there yet. Whatever may be attainable in the future is certainly thrown back for decades by the current waste of resources on the Western PC clusterf**k.
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