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Here's the latest data from AIMS, the Australian government agency that monitors the Great Barrier Reef [1]. There are three periods in these graphs: 1. 1985-2

Here's the latest data from AIMS, the Australian government agency that monitors the Great Barrier Reef [1]. There are three periods in these graphs: 1. 1985-2013. Climatologists report global warming during this period, but it had no impact on the corals. This fact is already a major problem for the claim that corals are hurt by global warming - if it were true, there should have been declines in this period. 2. 2010-2017. A big drop. This triggered lots of stories about how humanity is killing the corals. In 2019 they were saying the outlook had moved from "poor" to "very poor". [2] 3. 2020-2024. Robust growth to the highest levels ever seen, more than a third larger than the prior stable period. This time series is incompatible with the idea of a link between CO2 and coral health. Whatever caused this set of changes is unlikely to be human driven, given that the huge growth spurt caught self-proclaimed coral experts completely off guard and they still lack any explanation for what drives these changes. But we can safely say that corals are already heat tolerant. They exist in a wide range of temperatures across the world, which vary by far wider ranges than climate change is predicted to generate, and they have existed throughout history in which natural climate change has created vastly greater differences than seen in the last 100 years. Unfortunately AIMS don't seem interested in a true understanding of the corals. They are only interested in coral doom. Doom = a call to action = money and social status, whereas corals doing fine reduces them to mere observation of natural cycles, which doesn't have much potential for career growth. From the peak of "the Great Barrier Reef is going from poor to very poor" now they are reduced to saying "recent increases in hard coral cover can be quickly undone" and "The high coral cover reported this year is good news but does not mean all is fine". Their reports give the strong impression that they really wish the corals would do badly, but nature is feeling uncooperative right now. Their next best strategy is apparently to just ignore it and pretend scientists have to save the day anyway. [1] https://www.aims.gov.au/monitoring-great-barrier-reef/gbr-condition-summary-2023-24 https://www.aims.gov.au/monitoring-great-barrier-reef/gbr-co... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/30/great-barrier-reef-outlook-now-very-poor-australian-government-review-says https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/30/great-ba...

theultdev 2y ago
It would be nice if people responded to you instead of downvoting silently. Thank you for the information. It's also worth noting the Great Barrier Reef is fairly new (6-8k years old). It came to be from the sea rise of the Last Glacial Maximum 20k years ago.
- digging 2y ago
  Information is fine, overconfident denialist commentary earns a downvote. When you see a comment to the effect of "The self-proclaimed experts are wrong! I know the truth," you should heavily discount the conclusions it draws. Just because the mechanism of resurgence is unknown does not mean that all previous science on the topic is invalidated. It can simultaneously be true that ocean warming is devastating the Great Barrier Reef corals and that the GBR has the ability to rebound on its own. Here's a question the parent comment didn't address: Are we seeing the same species in this resurgence that we saw before mass bleaching, or is biodiversity reduced?
  - theultdev 2y ago
    Your last sentence would have been a fine reply to the GP without any meta level commenting. And GP's main point was that the data from the experts monitoring the reef did not line up with the climate change predictions of the reef. He didn't say HE knew the truth, he's saying the truth from scientific reports are not matching the predictions. If anything, he's pointing out the real "experts" data. The opposite of what you are accusing him of.
    - digging 2y ago
      > Your last sentence would have been a fine reply to the GP without any meta level commenting. I get that but I stand by all of it though. > data from the experts monitoring the reef did not line up with the climate change predictions of the reef. That's normal. > He didn't say HE knew the truth, Well, that was a paraphrase of the unwarranted confidence in each of these statements, which I find extremely dubious: > This fact is already a major problem for the claim that corals are hurt by global warming - if it were true, there should have been declines in this period It's easy to imagine that warming would not have any effect up until reaching a certain tipping point, so this is overstated as evidence-against. > This time series is incompatible with the idea of a link between CO2 and coral health. Basically a restatement of the above. They're not incompatible. > Whatever caused this set of changes is unlikely to be human driven "Unlikely" is also an overstatement. These data can cast doubt but aren't strong enough to say that anthropogenic causes are unlikely, given how likely it frankly is due to the scale of changes in the ocean. > But we can safely say that corals are already heat tolerant. No, we can't say this. Some corals are heat-tolerant. > they have existed throughout history in which natural climate change has created vastly greater differences than seen in the last 100 years. This is... borderline misinformation. It ignores the rate of change, which is just not really a credible way to discuss climate change. Also, specifically, which changes has coral survived? I don't actually know how old coral is or which mass extinctions it has survived which is actually pretty important for making a comparison. Etc. Not really worth going over every point, you get the idea.
cassepipe 2y ago
While you bring forward interesting data, I believe your view is uncharitable of the motives behind people wanting to protect coral reefs also you don't account for your own hindsight. Maybe a more charitable interpretation is that nobody really understood why there was such a massive drop and climate change was the most likely explanation so they went about warning about it given how important they are to their ecosystem ? Also I think you are wawing off climate change too quickly. Isn't it possible that we were lucky enough that the coral just adapted quickly to environmental change ?
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  The incentives here are pretty straightforward and plenty of people within academic fields are willing to admit what kind of distortions they create. Look at any HN discussion on academic fraud and you'll find discussions from people who are or were scientists where they tell similar stories. Climate change wasn't the most likely explanation for the big drop. To make that explanation work you have to hypothesize a lot of hidden variables and/or unknown processes, because CO2 emission is a slow steady process. If you want to posit some sort of cliff-edge response in the absence of evidence, fine, but at that point anyone can make up any explanation they like and it's just as compelling. There's no reason a-priori to believe that climate change kills corals given that they've survived hundreds of millions of years. There are probably natural cycles at work here which might be interesting to investigate, or there might even be some sort of human cause that's not climate related (chemicals being washed into the sea or whatever). AIMS is supposed to figure that out but they don't seem to be doing that, they just keep crying wolf. So it's reasonable to point out their incentives. > Isn't it possible that we were lucky enough that the coral just adapted quickly to environmental change ? Anything is possible in principle, but that doesn't help us much.
  - cassepipe 2y ago
    Thanks for the elaboration. That part left unconvinced though: > If you want to posit some sort of cliff-edge response [...] There's no reason a-priori to believe that climate change kills corals given that they've survived hundreds of millions of years I am actually realizing that you are probably talking about the effects of C02 levels in the oceans while I was actually thinking about the global rise in temperature which IIUC has seen a kind of cliff-edge change. And IIRC, ocean warmth is what I have read is threatening coral reefs, so I am bit lost here.
momoschili 2y ago
In addition to looking simply at the explosive growth limited to the past 4-5 years, it seems reasonable to look at the entire plot as well. All 3 graphs in [1] date back to 1965, and look at that data it seems that the growth/population of corals was reasonably stable up until the late 00s. edit: only goes back to 1985, error on my part, but still relatively stable from 1985-late 00s It may be possible that this recent spike in growth indicates that there is a strong recovery, but looking at the data it also seems inarguable the ecosystem has become highly unstable as well over the past 20 years, with drastic increases and decreases in all 3 populations that are much greater variance than from the mid 60s to early 00s. While I agree with you that it's possible that this coral death is overhyped, your own conclusions don't seem to be evidence-based themselves.
- theultdev 2y ago
  > It may be possible that this recent spike in growth indicates that there is a strong recovery, but looking at the data it also seems inarguable the ecosystem has become highly unstable as well over the past 20 years Could you expand on how the recent explosive growth is unstable and fits with the predictions that the coral is dying? And GPs post was evidence based, your interpretations were not, they were subjective and a bit handwaving, which is why I would like clarfication on your above view.
  - momoschili 2y ago
    Explosive growth is generally speaking not stable. I will defer to the dictionary definition of stable. I'm just using words how they are defined. From an ecosystem perspective, simple "coral coverage" is not a good enough metric to indicate that the coral reef is healthy. We also need to understand the biodiversity, is one coral taking over because it is better adapted and creating a monoculture? It's not clear. I made a point to not jump to conclusions, simply stating that explosive growth does not indicate a healthy ecosystem.
    - theultdev 2y ago
      Thank you for the clarification. Some may interpret "not stable" meaning that it could be detrimental to it's life, not just the textbook velocity definition. Could you answer the second part of my question: > "How does explosive growth fit with the predictions that the coral is dying?" To your statement: > "We also need to understand the biodiversity, is one coral taking over because it is better adapted and creating a monoculture" I'd say that we should not assume one way or another. It very may well be, or not. That data is probably out there and I'd be interested to know the answer. If the answer is yes, it's very healthy. I'd also like to know what species these scientists are breeding. If it's only a select few species, is that healthier than the species that have adapted naturally and are growing fine?
peterlk 2y ago
I went to Thailand shortly after the covid lockdowns ended, and the corals were all coming back. I talked to a boat captain about it and his comment was: “yeah, there were no tourists to abuse them”. I can’t help but wonder what effect tourism (and lockdowns) has had on corals. For example, It is common among scuba divers to only use mineral sunscreens because standard off-the-shelf sunscreen floats on the top of the water and blocks UV from the corals
- nradov 2y ago
  It appears that oxybenzone and octinoxate sunscreens may be directly toxic to corals. Blocking UV light doesn't seem to be the issue. https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/coral-reefs/truth-about-corals-and-sunscreen https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/coral-reefs/truth-about-cora...
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  It's possible that this sort of thing is connected, yes. The timing of a rebound in 2020 is interesting. But then again, if it's caused by tourism or sunscreen, the next interesting question is what changed around 2010?

theultdev 2y ago

It would be nice if people responded to you instead of downvoting silently. Thank you for the information. It's also worth noting the Great Barrier Reef is fairly new (6-8k years old). It came to be from the sea rise of the Last Glacial Maximum 20k years ago.

digging 2y ago
Information is fine, overconfident denialist commentary earns a downvote. When you see a comment to the effect of "The self-proclaimed experts are wrong! I know the truth," you should heavily discount the conclusions it draws. Just because the mechanism of resurgence is unknown does not mean that all previous science on the topic is invalidated. It can simultaneously be true that ocean warming is devastating the Great Barrier Reef corals and that the GBR has the ability to rebound on its own. Here's a question the parent comment didn't address: Are we seeing the same species in this resurgence that we saw before mass bleaching, or is biodiversity reduced?
- theultdev 2y ago
  Your last sentence would have been a fine reply to the GP without any meta level commenting. And GP's main point was that the data from the experts monitoring the reef did not line up with the climate change predictions of the reef. He didn't say HE knew the truth, he's saying the truth from scientific reports are not matching the predictions. If anything, he's pointing out the real "experts" data. The opposite of what you are accusing him of.
  - digging 2y ago
    > Your last sentence would have been a fine reply to the GP without any meta level commenting. I get that but I stand by all of it though. > data from the experts monitoring the reef did not line up with the climate change predictions of the reef. That's normal. > He didn't say HE knew the truth, Well, that was a paraphrase of the unwarranted confidence in each of these statements, which I find extremely dubious: > This fact is already a major problem for the claim that corals are hurt by global warming - if it were true, there should have been declines in this period It's easy to imagine that warming would not have any effect up until reaching a certain tipping point, so this is overstated as evidence-against. > This time series is incompatible with the idea of a link between CO2 and coral health. Basically a restatement of the above. They're not incompatible. > Whatever caused this set of changes is unlikely to be human driven "Unlikely" is also an overstatement. These data can cast doubt but aren't strong enough to say that anthropogenic causes are unlikely, given how likely it frankly is due to the scale of changes in the ocean. > But we can safely say that corals are already heat tolerant. No, we can't say this. Some corals are heat-tolerant. > they have existed throughout history in which natural climate change has created vastly greater differences than seen in the last 100 years. This is... borderline misinformation. It ignores the rate of change, which is just not really a credible way to discuss climate change. Also, specifically, which changes has coral survived? I don't actually know how old coral is or which mass extinctions it has survived which is actually pretty important for making a comparison. Etc. Not really worth going over every point, you get the idea.

cassepipe 2y ago

While you bring forward interesting data, I believe your view is uncharitable of the motives behind people wanting to protect coral reefs also you don't account for your own hindsight. Maybe a more charitable interpretation is that nobody really understood why there was such a massive drop and climate change was the most likely explanation so they went about warning about it given how important they are to their ecosystem ? Also I think you are wawing off climate change too quickly. Isn't it possible that we were lucky enough that the coral just adapted quickly to environmental change ?

mike_hearn 2y ago
The incentives here are pretty straightforward and plenty of people within academic fields are willing to admit what kind of distortions they create. Look at any HN discussion on academic fraud and you'll find discussions from people who are or were scientists where they tell similar stories. Climate change wasn't the most likely explanation for the big drop. To make that explanation work you have to hypothesize a lot of hidden variables and/or unknown processes, because CO2 emission is a slow steady process. If you want to posit some sort of cliff-edge response in the absence of evidence, fine, but at that point anyone can make up any explanation they like and it's just as compelling. There's no reason a-priori to believe that climate change kills corals given that they've survived hundreds of millions of years. There are probably natural cycles at work here which might be interesting to investigate, or there might even be some sort of human cause that's not climate related (chemicals being washed into the sea or whatever). AIMS is supposed to figure that out but they don't seem to be doing that, they just keep crying wolf. So it's reasonable to point out their incentives. > Isn't it possible that we were lucky enough that the coral just adapted quickly to environmental change ? Anything is possible in principle, but that doesn't help us much.
- cassepipe 2y ago
  Thanks for the elaboration. That part left unconvinced though: > If you want to posit some sort of cliff-edge response [...] There's no reason a-priori to believe that climate change kills corals given that they've survived hundreds of millions of years I am actually realizing that you are probably talking about the effects of C02 levels in the oceans while I was actually thinking about the global rise in temperature which IIUC has seen a kind of cliff-edge change. And IIRC, ocean warmth is what I have read is threatening coral reefs, so I am bit lost here.

momoschili 2y ago

In addition to looking simply at the explosive growth limited to the past 4-5 years, it seems reasonable to look at the entire plot as well. All 3 graphs in [1] date back to 1965, and look at that data it seems that the growth/population of corals was reasonably stable up until the late 00s. edit: only goes back to 1985, error on my part, but still relatively stable from 1985-late 00s It may be possible that this recent spike in growth indicates that there is a strong recovery, but looking at the data it also seems inarguable the ecosystem has become highly unstable as well over the past 20 years, with drastic increases and decreases in all 3 populations that are much greater variance than from the mid 60s to early 00s. While I agree with you that it's possible that this coral death is overhyped, your own conclusions don't seem to be evidence-based themselves.

theultdev 2y ago
> It may be possible that this recent spike in growth indicates that there is a strong recovery, but looking at the data it also seems inarguable the ecosystem has become highly unstable as well over the past 20 years Could you expand on how the recent explosive growth is unstable and fits with the predictions that the coral is dying? And GPs post was evidence based, your interpretations were not, they were subjective and a bit handwaving, which is why I would like clarfication on your above view.
- momoschili 2y ago
  Explosive growth is generally speaking not stable. I will defer to the dictionary definition of stable. I'm just using words how they are defined. From an ecosystem perspective, simple "coral coverage" is not a good enough metric to indicate that the coral reef is healthy. We also need to understand the biodiversity, is one coral taking over because it is better adapted and creating a monoculture? It's not clear. I made a point to not jump to conclusions, simply stating that explosive growth does not indicate a healthy ecosystem.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    Thank you for the clarification. Some may interpret "not stable" meaning that it could be detrimental to it's life, not just the textbook velocity definition. Could you answer the second part of my question: > "How does explosive growth fit with the predictions that the coral is dying?" To your statement: > "We also need to understand the biodiversity, is one coral taking over because it is better adapted and creating a monoculture" I'd say that we should not assume one way or another. It very may well be, or not. That data is probably out there and I'd be interested to know the answer. If the answer is yes, it's very healthy. I'd also like to know what species these scientists are breeding. If it's only a select few species, is that healthier than the species that have adapted naturally and are growing fine?

peterlk 2y ago

I went to Thailand shortly after the covid lockdowns ended, and the corals were all coming back. I talked to a boat captain about it and his comment was: “yeah, there were no tourists to abuse them”. I can’t help but wonder what effect tourism (and lockdowns) has had on corals. For example, It is common among scuba divers to only use mineral sunscreens because standard off-the-shelf sunscreen floats on the top of the water and blocks UV from the corals

nradov 2y ago
It appears that oxybenzone and octinoxate sunscreens may be directly toxic to corals. Blocking UV light doesn't seem to be the issue. https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/coral-reefs/truth-about-corals-and-sunscreen https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/coral-reefs/truth-about-cora...
mike_hearn 2y ago
It's possible that this sort of thing is connected, yes. The timing of a rebound in 2020 is interesting. But then again, if it's caused by tourism or sunscreen, the next interesting question is what changed around 2010?