Kiritimati Atoll: The Largest Coral Atoll In The World Lost 80 Percent Of Its Coral To Bleaching in

[ScienceRocks]

Kiritimati Atoll: The Largest Coral Atoll In The World Lost 80 Percent Of Its Coral To Bleaching in the Last Ten Months

Their estimate is, as of early April, about 80 percent of the coral colonies at Kiritimati are now dead, and another 15 percent are severely bleached and likely to die. It’s as if someone decided to cut down 90 percent of the Redwood Forest. Overnight, an entire ecosystem has essentially blinked out of existence.

I spoke with the team by satellite phone on one of their last days of dives, and the shock in their voices was palpable.

“There’s a good chance that this reef will never be the same,” said Cobb. “It’s a wake-up call.”

From cores that Cobb’s team has analyzed, she estimated there’s been nothing like the current die-off in Kiritimati in the 7,000 years of ancient coral history there. About 10 months ago, this reef was still mostly healthy, as it has been for thousands of years. Global warming will make the pressure on global corals even worse in the coming decades, and many of the world’s reefs can expect future bleaching events to occur more frequently. For some, like those in Kiritimati, the last few months — the worst global coral bleaching episode in history — may be a point of no return.

The Largest Coral Atoll In The World Lost 80 Percent Of Its Coral To Bleaching

This is really sad...

 

[The Great Goose]

I wonder why it's happening? Maybe it's a natural phenomenon.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I wonder why it's happening? Maybe it's a natural phenomenon.

Warming ocean + nino. Partly natural, Partly human caused.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

When the coral recovers later, you hear a fucking peep about it

 

[The Great Goose]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

 

[ScienceRocks]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

The oceans are taking in most of the heat.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Gee, let's blame everything on global warming. The earth's poles, the glaciers, the meteorite impacts...

When someone gets your coffee too hot, blame it on global warming. Likewise when its gone cold.

When you're too cold in an air conditioned room in the middle of summer, blame it on global warming.

When someone cuts one in crowded room, blame it on global warming.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

The oceans are taking in most of the heat.

Heat content? Is that different than temperature?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Notice, not a peep from the enviromarxists about China destroying coral in the South China Sea to built up the Spratlys.

 

[ScienceRocks]

 

[waltky]

After Bleaching, Florida's Coral Reefs Now Face Mysterious Disease...

Battered By Bleaching, Florida's Coral Reefs Now Face Mysterious Disease
May 15, 2018 • Florida's coral reefs are being decimated by a mysterious disease. It comes after years of warming waters have bleached coral reefs around the world, leaving them weakened.

At Mote Marine Lab's Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration in the Florida Keys, Joey Mandara is like a baby sitter. But instead of children he tends to thousands of baby corals, growing in large, shallow tanks called raceways. Mote has been doing this work for five years, raising corals from embryos into adult colonies, then planting them on Florida's reefs. Now, the emergence of a new, debilitating coral disease makes his work more important than ever. In one raceway, Mandara says fragments of brain coral have grown quickly in this controlled environment. "The brain coral were eight fragments," he says. "And over time, they've grown out and have now fused into each other, becoming one coral that will hopefully over time become sexually mature."

Florida's coral reefs, already bleached by years of warming ocean waters, are being further battered by a mysterious disease.​

Mote lab's science director Erinn Muller calls such progress "our beacon of hope." Around the world, coral reefs are facing trouble. Coral bleaching, due in part to rising ocean temperatures, has stressed reefs, leaving them weakened and susceptible to disease. Now, in Florida, scientists are struggling to combat a mysterious disease that's threatening the future of the world's third largest coral reef. In just four years, the so-far unidentified disease has already had a dramatic impact on Florida's reef tract, which extends some 360 miles down the state's Atlantic coast. Muller says it appears to be a bacterial disease, and for about half of the state's species of coral it's deadly. "When they're affected by this, the tissue sloughs off the skeleton," she says. "And we see that once a coral is infected, it usually kills the entire coral, sometimes within weeks. And it doesn't seem to stop."

A 'local extinction' that's on the move

William Precht was one of the first scientists to spot the outbreak and the impact it was having on corals. In 2014, he was hired by the state to monitor the health of reefs off the port of Miami, where a dredging project was underway. He saw the disease move from one patch of coral to another. Precht says it's proved especially deadly for species of brain and star coral, which form the foundation for many reefs. In some areas now, he says almost all of those corals are dead. "This is essentially equivalent to a local extinction, an ecological extirpation of these species locally," he says. "And when you go out and swim on the reefs of Miami-Dade County today, it would be a very rare chance encounter that you'd see some of these three or four species." Scientists believe ocean currents help spread the disease. Since it was first discovered, it's moved north, affecting reefs all the way up to the St. Lucie inlet. It's now moving south, through the Florida Keys. A large number of researchers are working to tackle the disease on many fronts. Some are using DNA analysis to try to identify the pathogens involved. Muller of Mote Marine says others are looking for ways to stop the disease from spreading.

Erinn Muller is science director at the Mote Marine Lab in the Florida Keys. She says the lab's work to raise healthy corals is a "beacon of hope" for profoundly damaged reefs.​

"Anything from... looking at chlorine-laced epoxy as an antiseptic, and even looking at how antibiotics interact with the disease," she says. "Because if it is bacterial, then antibiotics would be a way to stop it." This disease outbreak is the latest blow to a reef system that has been stressed and battered by decades of development, poor water quality and rising sea temperatures. After a long decline in Florida, coral reefs have been decimated, leaving too few species to successfully reproduce and rebuild the population on their own. That's why Muller believes the best hope now is to raise healthy corals in the lab and transplant them onto reefs. "We're really at a critical juncture right now, where we have corals left on the reef," she says. "Before we lose more corals, now is the time to start making a change." Mote Marine Lab hopes to plant 35,000 of its lab-raised corals onto reefs in the Keys this year. Muller says so far, corals raised in the lab have shown resistance to the mystery disease, giving scientists hope they may yet be able to save Florida's reefs.

Battered By Bleaching, Florida's Coral Reefs Now Face Mysterious Disease

 

[skookerasbil]

Bleached coral

Oh no.....not this s*** again

 

[Sunsettommy]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

The oceans are taking in most of the heat.

That is the whole ocean, not the LOCAL areas where the Corals actually grow.

Meanwhile I am still waiting for warmists to acknowledge that early in the Holocene, the Ocean waters were a LOT warmer than they are now, yet Corals thrived anyway. Also how did they survive the massive meltwater pulses that lasted for centuries at the early days of this interglacial period when Sea Level leaped upwards at a rapid pace.................

Waiting.... waiting......................................

 

[Sunsettommy]

Yawn............... Zzzz....................

 

[skookerasbil]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

The oceans are taking in most of the heat.

That is the whole ocean, not the LOCAL areas where the Corals actually grow.

Meanwhile I am still waiting for warmists to acknowledge that early in the Holocene, the Ocean waters were a LOT warmer than they are now, yet Corals thrived anyway. Also how did they survive the massive meltwater pulses that lasted for centuries at the early days of this interglacial period when Sea Level leaped upwards at a rapid pace.................

Waiting.... waiting......................................

Told ya Sunset....around here, people disappear whn they get publicly pwn'd. They even cherry pick coral.!!

 

[Billy_Bob]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

The oceans are taking in most of the heat.

You do realize this is just 0.002 deg C, over 70 years, don't you?

 

[Crick]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

The oceans are taking in most of the heat.

You do realize this is just 0.002 deg C, over 70 years, don't you?

No, I don't

Good math Billy. Why don't you show us your work.

 

[eagle1462010]

I haven't noticed the ocean getting warmer

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

The oceans are taking in most of the heat.

Nice graph.............now convert it to actual temperatures and not a graph in Joules..................

Of course the oceans absorb heat..........always have done so................But your graph purposely use Joules an Energy graph to make it look like a mountain.............Now convert the MOUNTAIN to the VAST OCEANS............and give us the real deal...............while oceans have been increasing in temperature it is slight.............and certainly not a mountain.

 

[eagle1462010]

Climate Science for Everyone: How much heat can the air and ocean store?

The specific heat of air is about 1158 J/(kg*C) while the specific heat of seawater is about 3850 J/(kg*C), where a Joule is a standard measurement of energy. We can see that air has a specific heat a little more than 3x smaller than that of water. But we know from our day-to-day experience that water is a lot denser than air is, and that will matter a great deal to our calculations. (For reference, one Joule is about the amount of energy you need to expend to lift one pound 9 inches.)

While we could go through a huge amount of geometry to estimate how much air and seawater there is on the Earth, but there’s an easier way – use the measurements of experts. for example, this paper calculated that the total mass of the atmosphere is about 5.14 x 1018 kg, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has calculated that the total volume of the world’s oceans is about 1.34 x 10^18 m3. In order to get the total mass of the world’s oceans we need an estimate of the density of seawater, which I found at this MIT link – 1027 kg/m3 (other sources have similar values).

Using this, we can multiply the mass of the atmosphere times the specific heat of the air to calculate what the total heat capacity of the atmosphere is:

(Eqn. 1)

In other words, it takes about 5.95 x 1021 Joules to raise the temperature of the atmosphere one degree Celsius.

For ocean we need to add one step – multiplying the volume of the water by its density to get the total mass of the ocean

(Eqn. 2)

This shows that the heat capacity of the oceans is about 1000x larger than the heat capacity of the Earth’s atmosphere.

So why do we care? First, it helps to explain why we care about El Nino and La Nina cycles in the Pacific Ocean. If you’re unfamiliar with the terms, La Nina is a massive upwelling of cold water in the Pacific that, because ocean water has a much higher heat capacity than air, cools off the entire planet and affects weather patterns. El Nino is a massive pool of hot water in the Pacific that does the opposite – it dumps heat stored in the ocean back into the atmosphere, warming the globe and affecting weather patterns. Nearly all the energy absorbed by the Pacific Ocean during La Nina periods will eventually be emitted back into the atmosphere during El Nino periods.

 

[eagle1462010]

Failed Math: In 1997, NOAA claimed that the Earth was 3.83 degrees warmer than today

Of course, apologists and NOAA itself will run to their statistical hidey-hole and say that the 1997 value isn’t about the 20th century temperature comparison, but only compared to the “30-year average (1961-1990) of the combined land and sea surface temperatures.”, and therefore the comparison is not a valid one. (Meanwhile NASA GISS uses a 1951 to 1980 baseline for their historical temperature claims today, which is an arbitrary choice) But, I say it doesn’t matter what they say. NOAA is charged with presenting factual evidence in the context of climatic history, and when they make claims of absolute temperature, they need to be darn sure they get it right. Otherwise, the press, supporters of the cause like Seth Borenstein at AP, and the folks at the Washington Post just blindly regurgitate what NOAA says without questioning it.