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In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, in the presence of the chemicals the reef will die. Ocean warming does allow the chemicals to mix more fr

by kls 7y ago

In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, in the presence of the chemicals the reef will die. Ocean warming does allow the chemicals to mix more freely but is not the cause, nor will fixing it stop the process of reef bleaching. The Bikini Atoll reefs where nuked and they are now doing fine even in the warmer temperatures, what the Atolls lack is industrial level farming. Further Cuba, which is in the same thermocline as the Keys has seen no where near the die off as Florida has. This is due to less industrialized farming. If the chemicals are removed the reefs don't die.

CarelessExpert 7y ago
> In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, So, I scanned through all three of your articles, and none of them make the claim that coral reefs do not bleach when only exposed to temperature stress. They only state that pollution is an additional stressor that increases temperature sensitivity. That coral reefs "will not die" due purely to temperature stressors is a pretty huge claim. Do you have any citations that support this claim?
- kls 7y ago
  "Although water temperatures at Looe Key exceeded the 30.5 °C bleaching threshold repeatedly over the 3-decade study, the three mass bleaching events occurred only when DIN:SRP ratios increased following heavy rainfall and increased Everglades runoff." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9 "Porter, who has studied coral for 50 years, says the new research finds that coral die-offs happened long before high water temperatures reach the reef." 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...
  - CarelessExpert 7y ago
    So that second quote doesn't really support the claim that temperature has no relationship to bleaching events. It only implies that bleaching can happen exclusively due to pollution. The first one is suggestive, though! At least in that specific region. Of course, that paper doesn't go so far as to make the claim you're making, only stating that "reducing the risk of coral bleaching, disease, and mortality under the current level of temperature stress". But it does indicate that pollution is an extremely important factor in bleaching events Given Australia has recently been experiencing repeated mass bleaching events over a very large area, and given you claim that that affirmatively is not associated with ocean temperature changes and is only associated with pollution, then you should be able to provide evidence that pollution levels have significantly and consistently increased near the Great Barrier in correlation with those events. Does that data exist?
    - kls 7y ago
      Sorry it took so long to get back to this, while not a scientific piece it is the laymen summation of a lot of research specifically concentrated on the Great Barrier Reef: https://www.marineconservation.org.au/pollution-great-barrier-reef/ https://www.marineconservation.org.au/pollution-great-barrie... A good article on why wetlands are critical to reef systems: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2148247-plan-to-save-great-barrier-reef-from-encroaching-farm-pollution/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2148247-plan-to-save-gr... And finally to answer the question to my knowledge this is the most comprehensive study and recommendations on the GBR. https://www.reefplan.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/45992/2017-scientific-consensus-statement-summary.pdf https://www.reefplan.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/... The end result is they recommend reducing waste run off as the primary driver for saving the reefs. There is an ongoing study to reproduce the claims we have seen here in the Keys but it has not concluded. The Keys and Australia (as well as Belize) are extremely similar in that all of them are barrier that exist with a fresh water outflow from wetlands. Where Florida and Australia are similar is that both use their wetlands to support industrial scale agriculture and are both in poor health. If we want to get into specifics it is actually one form of agriculture that is causing the most damage (in both Florida and Australia) and that is sugarcane farming. In the past sugarcane farming was not a cost effective endeavor in the US or Australia, with the ethanol fuel additive mandates that all changed as it increased the already high demand for sugar. Sugarcane is grown on the banks of canal systems and low lying marshes. In Florida it is grown in the everglades from Lake Okeechobee down. Given it's close proximity to the wetlands there is no time for soil containment of the high levels of nutrients used to rapidly grow the sugarcane. Specifically in Florida, historically citrus was traditionally the agricultural cash crop, citrus is grown in sandier soil with high concentrations of limestone. These is generally off of the wetlands by at least 600 yards and expands all the way inland until you get to the Florida prairies where the land is more valuable as cattle land, when only looking at it from an agricultural value standpoint. Until the introduction of sugarcane farming directly into the wetlands, Florida did not see significant coral die-offs. I have watched the reefs of Mainland Florida die off thru the last few decades ending with all of them being dead in the early 90's. This was due to diversions of flow in the everglades, done for agricultural purposes, and it killed the mainland reefs. The restoration of flow was done to restore the Everglades to it's natural and historic outflow which was traditionally out of the bottom of Florida into the gulf basin, In that exact time I have witnessed the Florida Keys reefs start to experience the same fate.
Retric 7y ago
Global warming involves changes in ocean PH levels due to increases in CO2 concentration and changes in weather patterns not just temperature changes. So, while some species of coral can survive higher temperatures that’s far from the only problem.

by kls 7y ago

CarelessExpert 7y ago

> In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, So, I scanned through all three of your articles, and none of them make the claim that coral reefs do not bleach when only exposed to temperature stress. They only state that pollution is an additional stressor that increases temperature sensitivity. That coral reefs "will not die" due purely to temperature stressors is a pretty huge claim. Do you have any citations that support this claim?

kls 7y ago
"Although water temperatures at Looe Key exceeded the 30.5 °C bleaching threshold repeatedly over the 3-decade study, the three mass bleaching events occurred only when DIN:SRP ratios increased following heavy rainfall and increased Everglades runoff." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9 "Porter, who has studied coral for 50 years, says the new research finds that coral die-offs happened long before high water temperatures reach the reef." 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...
- CarelessExpert 7y ago
  So that second quote doesn't really support the claim that temperature has no relationship to bleaching events. It only implies that bleaching can happen exclusively due to pollution. The first one is suggestive, though! At least in that specific region. Of course, that paper doesn't go so far as to make the claim you're making, only stating that "reducing the risk of coral bleaching, disease, and mortality under the current level of temperature stress". But it does indicate that pollution is an extremely important factor in bleaching events Given Australia has recently been experiencing repeated mass bleaching events over a very large area, and given you claim that that affirmatively is not associated with ocean temperature changes and is only associated with pollution, then you should be able to provide evidence that pollution levels have significantly and consistently increased near the Great Barrier in correlation with those events. Does that data exist?
  - kls 7y ago
    Sorry it took so long to get back to this, while not a scientific piece it is the laymen summation of a lot of research specifically concentrated on the Great Barrier Reef: https://www.marineconservation.org.au/pollution-great-barrier-reef/ https://www.marineconservation.org.au/pollution-great-barrie... A good article on why wetlands are critical to reef systems: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2148247-plan-to-save-great-barrier-reef-from-encroaching-farm-pollution/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2148247-plan-to-save-gr... And finally to answer the question to my knowledge this is the most comprehensive study and recommendations on the GBR. https://www.reefplan.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/45992/2017-scientific-consensus-statement-summary.pdf https://www.reefplan.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/... The end result is they recommend reducing waste run off as the primary driver for saving the reefs. There is an ongoing study to reproduce the claims we have seen here in the Keys but it has not concluded. The Keys and Australia (as well as Belize) are extremely similar in that all of them are barrier that exist with a fresh water outflow from wetlands. Where Florida and Australia are similar is that both use their wetlands to support industrial scale agriculture and are both in poor health. If we want to get into specifics it is actually one form of agriculture that is causing the most damage (in both Florida and Australia) and that is sugarcane farming. In the past sugarcane farming was not a cost effective endeavor in the US or Australia, with the ethanol fuel additive mandates that all changed as it increased the already high demand for sugar. Sugarcane is grown on the banks of canal systems and low lying marshes. In Florida it is grown in the everglades from Lake Okeechobee down. Given it's close proximity to the wetlands there is no time for soil containment of the high levels of nutrients used to rapidly grow the sugarcane. Specifically in Florida, historically citrus was traditionally the agricultural cash crop, citrus is grown in sandier soil with high concentrations of limestone. These is generally off of the wetlands by at least 600 yards and expands all the way inland until you get to the Florida prairies where the land is more valuable as cattle land, when only looking at it from an agricultural value standpoint. Until the introduction of sugarcane farming directly into the wetlands, Florida did not see significant coral die-offs. I have watched the reefs of Mainland Florida die off thru the last few decades ending with all of them being dead in the early 90's. This was due to diversions of flow in the everglades, done for agricultural purposes, and it killed the mainland reefs. The restoration of flow was done to restore the Everglades to it's natural and historic outflow which was traditionally out of the bottom of Florida into the gulf basin, In that exact time I have witnessed the Florida Keys reefs start to experience the same fate.

Retric 7y ago

Global warming involves changes in ocean PH levels due to increases in CO2 concentration and changes in weather patterns not just temperature changes. So, while some species of coral can survive higher temperatures that’s far from the only problem.