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Global Warming politics aside as easily as a catastrophe can be pushed aside. Is anyone more informed able to explain how the KT Extinction event affected cora

Global Warming politics aside as easily as a catastrophe can be pushed aside. Is anyone more informed able to explain how the KT Extinction event affected corals? How were they able to survive the mass extinction event of the dinosaurs if they're so sensitive to temperature changes?

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
Googling "coral kt extinction" gave me this BBC article- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45133197 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45133197 So it looks like either corals evolved after the KT extinction event or they survived in very small amounts (maybe a few species) before re-exploding in diversity after the extinction event. This can be seen in global warming today- some corals take to the hotter water better than other corals, and even some regions that have had hotter water historically have corals that aren't really affected, while the Great Barrier Reef and similar are undergoing a mass dying. EDIT: Also, deep water corals do exist, so it's possible they survived from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-water_coral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-water_coral
- vangourd 7y ago
  Thank you for you response. I should have LBYL instead of EAFP
  - MichaelApproved 7y ago
    I hate acronyms so much. LBYL - Look Before You Leap EAFP - Easier to Ask Forgiveness than Permission
    - polycaster 7y ago
      Thank you very much
    - tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
      You must have really hated the early internet then!
eloff 7y ago
Nevermind 65 million years ago, corals survived 400 ft of comparatively rapid sea level rise at the end of the last glacial period 11000 years ago. All the existing reefs drowned. They're hardier than we give them credit for. They're in trouble again thanks to us, but now they also have us to help. We can plant reefs and engineer heat resistant breeds of coral.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Corals live underwater...
  - topmonk 7y ago
    They need to be close to the surface to get enough sunlight to live.
  - eloff 7y ago
    Corals don't live at those depths, not "regular" corals anyway. They need to be close enough to the surface for the sunlight to feed the symbiotic organisms on which they depend.
chewz 7y ago
I am no expert but I had been diving with with some marine biologists. They were pretty sure that corals are able to adapt - move to cooler waters with right light / temperature combination. The problem is that coral reefs grow slowly so if existing reefs die it would be loss for us divers and for the entire ecosystem (fishes etc.) that's irreversible over say 100 years perspective.
bufferoverflow 7y ago
Survivor bias. Many species went extinct, hence the name of the event. We should treat mass-near-extinctions that are going on very seriously, if we want to have a diversity of life and not brown toxic goo everywhere. Yes, humans are unlikely to go extinct, since we know vertical farming and airponics, but all the beauty of life around us can disappear.
kls 7y ago
They are not that sensitive to temperature change, the article is bad science, the reefs are being bleached and killed by titanium and zinc much of which comes from sun screen. That is why the only reefs that are surviving are in remote areas that do not see the population density to elevate the water to the ppm that its needed to bleach the coral, I live less than 3 miles from Mote marine and run into and talk to many of their researchers not one of them has ever told me that they have data that warming alone is bleaching the reefs but they know for a fact titanium and zinc are, they are one of the foremost research centers on reef science and reef restoration: https://www.icriforum.org/sites/default/files/ICRI_Sunscreen_0.pdf https://www.icriforum.org/sites/default/files/ICRI_Sunscreen... https://time.com/4080985/sunscreen-coral-reefs/ https://time.com/4080985/sunscreen-coral-reefs/ IIRC Hawaii has already banned sunscreens that contain those products and we have banned it in the Florida Keys. It is what is causing bleaching, we know it for a fact. My daughter while not a marine biologist yet, is well on her way, she does a lot of work on reef restoration and focuses her studies on Coral as it is what she wants to do. The entire focus on reef restoration is in the areas of agricultural run off, micro-plastics and suspended micro metals elimination as well as reforesting. Ocean temperatures are not killing the reefs if it was it would be as simple as troughing deep water and using tidal flow to up flow cooler water over the reef. I actually had this conversation with one of the researches once, as I interact with them from time to time due to my daughters interests. Coastal mainland Florida has lost all of it's reefs, they where alive when I was a kid but where dying. It was also the time when Florida saw a huge tourism and population boom. The reefs in the keys where fine at that time, but by the early 90's the lower keys from the 7 mile bridge to Key west started to see signs of bleaching, meanwhile there was no evidence of it in the upper Keys which sits right in between the dead reefs of mainland Florida and the dying reefs of Key West. The difference was Key West became a larger tourist destination in that time due to the formation of the tourist development council in the years preceding. For the most part Key Largo still does not have the same problem (it is happening though, due to agricultural run off) because it sees less tourism than Key West and the tourism it does see is more SCUBA based tourism who generally do not wear sunscreen. Another culprit is agricultural run off, while I am not a fan of the article below because it states it's global warming out of the gate, then offers no fact to back up said statement and omits the fact that the study they cite noted in the study that there where no increases in average water temperature in the Keys during the study, or the fact that the Keys has seen a Keys wide drop in average water temps for the past decade. There where several spikes in temperature above the threshold and die off where only observed when massive runoffs where in place. When the temps exceeded the threshold and runoff nitrogen and phosphorus where observed to be in low PPM there where no recorded die-offs. That being said it does do a good job of explaining what said runoff is doing to the reefs. Basically when the water hits a certain N:P ration in the presence of of warmer water, it kills the reef. Without the N:P ration the reefs thrive in the warmer spikes so, water temp is second to the fact that the presence of agricultural run off creates the chemical environment that is toxic to the reef. The heat is only the catalyst when those chemicals are presence. https://www.hwhfoundation.org/news/nutrient-runoff-starves-corals-in-the-florida-keys/ https://www.hwhfoundation.org/news/nutrient-runoff-starves-c... https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742050975/floridas-corals-are-dying-off-but-it-s-not-all-due-to-climate-change-study-says https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742050975/floridas-corals-are... In the Keys we have banned fertilizers for lawn maintenance and we have moved the population centers to sewage whereas just a decade ago every house outside of Key West and Marathon has septic systems. But we still have a huge issue with Big sugar dumping water into the everglades which runs out of the gulf and over our reefs. I am very concerned about our reefs and it is important that people know exactly what is killing them. Fixing global warming is not going to save our reefs. It gives people a false sense of security and needs to be rebuked as bad science.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

Googling "coral kt extinction" gave me this BBC article- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45133197 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45133197 So it looks like either corals evolved after the KT extinction event or they survived in very small amounts (maybe a few species) before re-exploding in diversity after the extinction event. This can be seen in global warming today- some corals take to the hotter water better than other corals, and even some regions that have had hotter water historically have corals that aren't really affected, while the Great Barrier Reef and similar are undergoing a mass dying. EDIT: Also, deep water corals do exist, so it's possible they survived from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-water_coral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-water_coral

vangourd 7y ago
Thank you for you response. I should have LBYL instead of EAFP
- MichaelApproved 7y ago
  I hate acronyms so much. LBYL - Look Before You Leap EAFP - Easier to Ask Forgiveness than Permission
  - polycaster 7y ago
    Thank you very much
  - tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
    You must have really hated the early internet then!

eloff 7y ago

Nevermind 65 million years ago, corals survived 400 ft of comparatively rapid sea level rise at the end of the last glacial period 11000 years ago. All the existing reefs drowned. They're hardier than we give them credit for. They're in trouble again thanks to us, but now they also have us to help. We can plant reefs and engineer heat resistant breeds of coral.

gamblor956 7y ago
Corals live underwater...
- topmonk 7y ago
  They need to be close to the surface to get enough sunlight to live.
- eloff 7y ago
  Corals don't live at those depths, not "regular" corals anyway. They need to be close enough to the surface for the sunlight to feed the symbiotic organisms on which they depend.

chewz 7y ago

I am no expert but I had been diving with with some marine biologists. They were pretty sure that corals are able to adapt - move to cooler waters with right light / temperature combination. The problem is that coral reefs grow slowly so if existing reefs die it would be loss for us divers and for the entire ecosystem (fishes etc.) that's irreversible over say 100 years perspective.

bufferoverflow 7y ago

Survivor bias. Many species went extinct, hence the name of the event. We should treat mass-near-extinctions that are going on very seriously, if we want to have a diversity of life and not brown toxic goo everywhere. Yes, humans are unlikely to go extinct, since we know vertical farming and airponics, but all the beauty of life around us can disappear.

kls 7y ago

They are not that sensitive to temperature change, the article is bad science, the reefs are being bleached and killed by titanium and zinc much of which comes from sun screen. That is why the only reefs that are surviving are in remote areas that do not see the population density to elevate the water to the ppm that its needed to bleach the coral, I live less than 3 miles from Mote marine and run into and talk to many of their researchers not one of them has ever told me that they have data that warming alone is bleaching the reefs but they know for a fact titanium and zinc are, they are one of the foremost research centers on reef science and reef restoration: https://www.icriforum.org/sites/default/files/ICRI_Sunscreen_0.pdf https://www.icriforum.org/sites/default/files/ICRI_Sunscreen... https://time.com/4080985/sunscreen-coral-reefs/ https://time.com/4080985/sunscreen-coral-reefs/ IIRC Hawaii has already banned sunscreens that contain those products and we have banned it in the Florida Keys. It is what is causing bleaching, we know it for a fact. My daughter while not a marine biologist yet, is well on her way, she does a lot of work on reef restoration and focuses her studies on Coral as it is what she wants to do. The entire focus on reef restoration is in the areas of agricultural run off, micro-plastics and suspended micro metals elimination as well as reforesting. Ocean temperatures are not killing the reefs if it was it would be as simple as troughing deep water and using tidal flow to up flow cooler water over the reef. I actually had this conversation with one of the researches once, as I interact with them from time to time due to my daughters interests. Coastal mainland Florida has lost all of it's reefs, they where alive when I was a kid but where dying. It was also the time when Florida saw a huge tourism and population boom. The reefs in the keys where fine at that time, but by the early 90's the lower keys from the 7 mile bridge to Key west started to see signs of bleaching, meanwhile there was no evidence of it in the upper Keys which sits right in between the dead reefs of mainland Florida and the dying reefs of Key West. The difference was Key West became a larger tourist destination in that time due to the formation of the tourist development council in the years preceding. For the most part Key Largo still does not have the same problem (it is happening though, due to agricultural run off) because it sees less tourism than Key West and the tourism it does see is more SCUBA based tourism who generally do not wear sunscreen. Another culprit is agricultural run off, while I am not a fan of the article below because it states it's global warming out of the gate, then offers no fact to back up said statement and omits the fact that the study they cite noted in the study that there where no increases in average water temperature in the Keys during the study, or the fact that the Keys has seen a Keys wide drop in average water temps for the past decade. There where several spikes in temperature above the threshold and die off where only observed when massive runoffs where in place. When the temps exceeded the threshold and runoff nitrogen and phosphorus where observed to be in low PPM there where no recorded die-offs. That being said it does do a good job of explaining what said runoff is doing to the reefs. Basically when the water hits a certain N:P ration in the presence of of warmer water, it kills the reef. Without the N:P ration the reefs thrive in the warmer spikes so, water temp is second to the fact that the presence of agricultural run off creates the chemical environment that is toxic to the reef. The heat is only the catalyst when those chemicals are presence. https://www.hwhfoundation.org/news/nutrient-runoff-starves-corals-in-the-florida-keys/ https://www.hwhfoundation.org/news/nutrient-runoff-starves-c... https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742050975/floridas-corals-are-dying-off-but-it-s-not-all-due-to-climate-change-study-says https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742050975/floridas-corals-are... In the Keys we have banned fertilizers for lawn maintenance and we have moved the population centers to sewage whereas just a decade ago every house outside of Key West and Marathon has septic systems. But we still have a huge issue with Big sugar dumping water into the everglades which runs out of the gulf and over our reefs. I am very concerned about our reefs and it is important that people know exactly what is killing them. Fixing global warming is not going to save our reefs. It gives people a false sense of security and needs to be rebuked as bad science.