Hawaiian Corals Recover From Bleaching

[Mike Johnson]

Don't want to get into a political debate, but nature has a way of taking care of herself.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-01-29-07-28-18

 

[Oxylebius]

That comment begs a debate!!!! :jabber: As long as nature isn't pushed too far off base, recovery can happen. Luckily for this area, there weren't too many other factors that the corals were fighting to make a come back (land-based pollution, WQ degredation, etc.).

Here is another one on same story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...4d566a-a823-11e4-a162-121d06ca77f1_story.html

 

[Mike Johnson]

Okay, I agree wholeheartedly that man made pollution is very destructive to the earth's coral reefs and we can and should do things to correct that. Climate change is not proven to be man made and I wish that we would take the trillions of dollars spent on it and clean up our planet instead. More stringent regulations on sewage discharge into the oceans would be a good start.

 

[Oxylebius]

Ah, this is where you and I have disagreed before - we can argue until both of us are blue in the face.

Scientific Consensus - Ninety-seven percent (97%) of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

 

[Mike Johnson]

:blueoh: That's me with a blue face.

 

[sirrealism]

Though I dont want to use the stick to poke anyone. The issue I have with global warming is this planet has heated and cooled many times over so who is to say this is not a natural cycle. On the other hand I agree we have polluted our air to a point where we very well might be causing it. So I guess both sides could be right. Which ever way is true we need to stop it. Both air and dumping waist in the water. Though I think we as a country are doing better "We still have a lot to do" we need to get the rest of the world to follow suit as a lot of other countries dont do anything to stop pollution. I did a quick search on the countries polluting the most and I am shocked to find the middle east countries are the worst. I had thought it was china.

 

[Oxylebius]

I don't mind a and am happy to engage in a civil conversation about this :jabber:

Yes, the planet has heated and cooled, this is normal. The problem is that this time it has heated way beyond what it has before. This is what is concerning. This additional heating is warming our oceans and causing changes in climatic patterns world wide - freak weather, storms, drought & flooding in areas beyond the usual. Extremes are showing up more often and sometimes in areas that haven't had this type of weather before.

CO2 changes affect temperature due to the greenhouse effect, while temperature changes affect CO2 concentrations due to the carbon cycle response. So, more CO2 in the atmosphere causes it to heat up. The ocean play a buffering affect and absorb a lot of CO2, but then they will also heat up also. So the more CO2 there is the more heating will happen. And this through a lot of things off-balance, including weather patterns and ocean dynamics. And humans have played a part in adding more CO2 in the atmosphere the last century, more so then at any other time. So, we are adding to the normal fluctuation on the earth. When the earth is in a warming pattern, and we are also adding to that warming by the amount of CO2 we are releasing, then it is a double whammy and more heating happens.

 

[sirrealism]

Agree but as I said this is not the first time nor will it be the last. It is happening faster this time then in the past and that is our fault agreed but it is a normal cycle and we were on the heat up cycle already. Here is just a little bit of info showing this. Like I said we are to blame for the speed at which it is going up. The last time it took 5000 years and we are heating 20 times faster then that time. But even if we stopped all the C02 we are adding we would still be heating up. Just slower. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php So yes we are to blame for the speed but it would still happen. Could the corals we care about so much deal with the slower heating of the oceans? I dont know! I enjoy a conversation like this just like you as long as it never gets heated and some people cant do that which I understand because they are passionate about it which is a good thing. Without passionate people we would still be in the stone ages.

 

[Oxylebius]

A lot of interesting work is happening looking at heat shock proteins in corals as a way of looking at coral health. Ties into coral bleaching and coral stress levels. Interesting work if you want to look into it.

What will end up happening if the ocean continue to heat is that biodiversity of corals will start to decline. There may be a few coral species that can tolerate the warming waters (but not necessarily water that become more acidic due to changes in pH), but unfortunately many more corals in shallow waters won't be able to tolerate the warming waters and will die off. Corals in deeper cooler waters won't be as affected by temp increases, at least not at first, but again they won't be able to survive more acidic waters.

 

[sirrealism]

To be honest I wish I understood it more then I do. "I think I slept during chem and Bio" I was looking at some of the local collages for a couple of marine bio classes Just so I could understand more.

 

[Oxylebius]

Taking an updated marine bio class sounds fun!

Coral heat shock protein work can be heavily into biochem and genetics. I am no expert, just aware of the work and have general knowledge on it.

Here are some interesting recent articles from ScienceDaily on bleaching, warming oceans, and acidification.

Some corals adjusting to rising ocean temperatures
Research led by Stanford scientist Steve Palumbi reveals how some corals can quickly switch on or off certain genes in order to survive in warmer-than-average tidal waters.

Cool deep-water protects coral reefs against heat stress
Cool currents from the deep ocean could save tropical corals from lethal heat stress. Researchers observed internal waves preserving corals in the Andaman Sea.

What are mechanisms of zooxanthella expulsion from coral?
Coral bleaching, which often results in the mass mortality of corals and in the collapse of coral reef ecosystems, has become an important issue around the world, with the number of coral reefs decreasing annually. A research group has demonstrated that corals more actively digest and expel damaged symbiotic zooxanthellae under conditions of thermal stress, and that this is likely to be a mechanism that helps corals to cope with environmental change.

Close-up of coral bleaching event
Ecologists have shed light on exactly what happens to coral during periods of excessively high water temperatures. Their study documents a coral bleaching event in the Caribbean in minute detail and sheds light on how it changed a coral's community of algae -- a change that could have long-term consequences for coral health, as bleaching is predicted to occur more frequently in the future.

 

[Mike Johnson]

The Senate voted the other day 98-1 "climate change is real and not a hoax." However, the vote was 50 - 49 that "climate change is the result of human activities."

"Climate is changing, and climate has always changed, and always will, there's archeological evidence of that, there's biblical evidence of that, there's historic evidence of that, it will always change," he said on the Senate floor. "The hoax is that there are some people that are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful that they can change climate. Man can't change climate." Sen. James Inhofe

 

[Oxylebius]

I'd rather believe what science is telling us and what climate experts are telling us over someone's uninformed opinion who has not studied in the field.

Just because a politician says something doesn't make it true. Out of anyone I wouldn't believe a politician w/o looking into the topic myself. Too many of them have lied to give them any credibility. And talk about a bunch of people having agendas!!!

Yes, we both are in agreement that the planet has warmed and cooled in phases. The scientific evidence coming from ice cores records corroborates this.

The problem is that warming has happened faster in the last century, particularly the second half, then it has during any other time in the past. This is concerning. To answer why this additional warming is happening out of the normal phase is what climate experts have been trying to find answers to.

And this is why climate experts around the world believe that is is extremely likely (at least 95% probability) that humans are causing the planet to heat up faster then it would have in the normal warming phase, and most of this additional warming is happening through human activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

As we can see in video from NASA, in the last 400,000 years, the Co2 levels have never grown above 300 ppm, as opposed to now, where the Co2 levels are at Obviously, this abrupt growth in Co2 levels are caused by human activity, such as mass production, the use of electricity, polluting, deforestation, etc. Many different activities are contributing to the additional increase, not just one type of man-made activity.

To bring this back to the oceans and corals.... the fast increase in CO2 in the atmosphere in the last century is being absorbed by the oceans, which is causing them to both warm up and become more acidic. The buffering capacity of the ocean is huge, but there will become a point where absorption of CO2 in the ocean will slow down.

With high amounts of CO2 being absorbed in the oceans, corals and other shell creating organisms will suffer and die out. If not from bleaching from warming waters, it will be from not having the buffering capacity to create new calcium carbonate structures due to ocean acidification.

 

[Mike Johnson]

My approach to this issue is more common sense than it is fanatical. Common sense = CO2 is necessary in growing plants. Fanatical = stop raising cows and too many people breathing and expelling CO2. We need to kill off a few billion of each.

Let me know when there's a way to stop the earth from changing it's magnetic poles or when you figure a way to change the seasons of the sun. Or stopping volcanoes from erupting.

I'm old enough to remember when there was bad pollution here in the United States - we are now one of the cleanest countries in the world. Remember they used to run yellow lights along the freeways in Gary in the daytime? This is where our attention should be oriented, getting other countries to do this. Stop pollution, stop toxic waste.