The future of the entire 350,000 km2 Great Barrier Reef hangs in the balance — as the coralapocalypse has wiped out 50% of the coral in just 25 years. Lordy! If only we’d built some off-shore wind farms on the reef to protect it! We could cover whole islands with solar panels? What are we thinking!
But as Peter Ridd points out, AIMS (The Australian Institute of Marine Science) surveys around 100 reefs every year — and for the last 35 years — and they find things are roughly the same. See the graph below.
Don’t look now, but corals are doing fine. From Jennifer Marohasy and Peter Ridd.
Somehow Terry Hughes — and the Centre of Excellence for Integrated Coral Reef Studies — gets up to $4 million each year to report on the reef but won’t release the data behind the mass media campaign.
The ABC — which gets nearly $3 million dollars every single day — can’t even pick up the phone to interview AIMS or Peter Ridd and ask one hard question of Terry Hughes’ “Excellent” centre. (We all know why they had to put the word “excellence” in the title, it was the only way the word would ever be used to describe an activist group pretending to be scientists.)
And we all know that if anyone at James Cook University (JCU) has any doubts about the quality of the output from the “Excellent” centre they won’t be saying a word or they’ll get sacked like Peter Ridd did.
JCU — still supporting junk science and ignoring that other case of potential fraud?
Has James Cook Uni starting investigating the possible scientific fraud by Oona Lonnsteadt, or are they too busy getting their High Court Case ready to defend their right to sack Peter Ridd for using satire in emails and being “un collegial”?
Who cares about the damn corals eh? JCU are more interested in being a Labor Party marketing machine and giving free advertising to Banker carbon schemes and the Renewables Industry. The Morrison Government could solve this in five minutes but continues to support junk universities by feeding them money without even the minimum requirement that they enshrine free speech in all their employment contacts.
Likewise the Bureau of Met neglect the temperature sites near the reef and generate fake warming by ignoring site changes.
Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef stays about the same Source AIMS
If Dietzel et al were really worried about the reef they wouldn’t be hiding the data.
From Peter Ridd at GWPF:
Moreover, Professor Hughes has refused to make public the raw data upon which he made this claim, despite repeated requests.
This latest work by Prof Hughes needs a thorough quality-audit to test its veracity”, says Ridd. “Prime-facie, there are excellent grounds to treat it with great scepticism.”
If only someone somewhere was concerned about coral, they wouldn’t let the reef be abused and misused as a marketing tool. (Thankfully Jennifer Marohasy and Peter Ridd shoot video’s on the health of the reef).
Pray for the Tourism Industry of Queensland.
REFERENCE
AIMS — Last annual survey: 2019/2020
Dietzel A, Bode M, Connolly S, Hughes T. (2020). ‘Long-term shifts in the colony size structure of coral populations along the Great Barrier Reef’. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1432 (Paywalled).
h/t GWPF
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Peter Ridd’s new book has just come out:
REEF HERESY? Science, Research and the Great Barrier Reef — Peter Ridd
Peter Ridd, Great Barrier Reef, Book.
Paperback, 300 pages, $39.95, ISBN: 9781922449306
With the Foreword by Jennifer Marohasy
And the legal saga by Morgan Begg
Peter Ridd has lived by the Great Barrier Reef for most of his life. He knows it and he loves it. Nothing is so important than its protection and preservation. For more than three decades the Reef and the marine region of which it is a key part have been central to his scientific research.
In this book Ridd provides a comprehensive, evidence-based account of the state of the Reef for Australians interested in this priceless national treasure, and the science they need to understand its condition properly.
He systematically examines major potential dangers to the Reef – coral-eating crown-of-thorns star fish, the impact nutrient pollution from agriculture, dredging of shipping ports, climate change, coal dust, over-fishing, herbicides.
The conclusion of this measured, evidence-based study is that it is essential that the health and vitality of the Reef and its environs should be jealously protected. Equally, there is little in its present condition, analysed in the perspective of more than half-a-century, to warrant the alarm and even hysteria which too often mark any discussion or debate about the Reef and the policies promoted by governments purportedly to safeguard its well-being.
A key to ensuring the future of the Reef is ensuring the quality of the science upon which governments base policies and legislation for its protection. He advocates rigorous, independent quality assurance of major research, especially that which forms the foundation of public policy.
Peter Ridd, a marine geophysicist, is the author or joint author of more than 100 scientific papers and co-inventor of a range of instruments used on reefs around the world.
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The Peter Ridd story:
- Prof Peter Ridd says the Great Barrier Reef recovers, our science institutions are failing us.
- Professor Peter Ridd is facing misconduct charges for not selling peer review as sacred?
- JCU bans Prof Peter Ridd from criticizing scientific institutions. Defiant, he refuses, fights on!
- Professor Peter Ridd sacked: James Cook Uni goes nuclear on free speech:
- Don Aitken tells it: Peter Ridd was sacked because he threatened the Money Making Engine at Uni
- Staff at JCU are too scared to use their uni email – this is what “academic freedom” looks like?
- Fake science on fake fish from James Cook Uni?
- Peter Ridd’s Court Case — Free Speech versus James Cook Uni.
- Peter Ridd: The Great Barrier Reef has about the same amount of coral as in 1985
- JCU appeals Ridd decision: James Cook Uni vows to waste more funds in quest to stamp out opinions
- Peter Ridd update: James Cook University wasted $630,000 defending the Bureaucrat Rulers of Science, and plans to appeal
- Global Mystery: Barrier Reef dying, total panic, but no one cares enough to measure growth for last 15 years?
More wailing and gnashing of teeth!
Currently the UN-IPCC is hyping a nonsense report on increasing natural disasters, and here we see a pigs ear of a
reportopinion piece dressed as a silk purse of Australian barrier reef scientific research.It is just part of the left’s process to try and keep everyone on edge and scared.
Scared enough to want their ‘Great Reset’ when freedoms are removed and Chinese style governments rule the world.
Obviously Professor Hughes deserves nothing more than laughter at his opinion piece he has had the temerity to publish. As a
scientificdocument without data it is NOT science, it is a joke! Unleash the YouTube comedians.210
T
“here we see a pigs ear of a report opinion piece dressed as a silk purse”
Careful with that expression as it has been done –
http://museum.mit.edu/150/77
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I actually admire his simple approach: Whatever half you look at, it must be the other half that is destroyed.
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“as the coralapocalypse has wiped out 50% of the coral in just 25 years. ”
Wind farms! Hell, we might as well have drilled it (/s)
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They must be getting desperate with no one listening to climate scare stories because Covid has been dominating the news .
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Meanwhile REAL science reports show a different story…
According to scientists (Yan et al., 2019 at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018JG004939), coral reef ecosystems thrive in centennial-scale warming phases such as the Medieval Warm Period and Current Warm Period, whereas they experience population declines (“switch-off” episodes) during cold periods (the Little Ice Age).
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Though it’s thought it may take about 9-12 years for corals to recover from El Niño disturbances (Guoezo et al., 2019, @ https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2018.2908), Davis and colleagues document (at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00282/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1023338_45_Marine_20190625_arts_A#B77 ) a 400% increase in coral growth rates between 2014 and 2017, or before and after the “devastating” 2015-’16 El Niño event.
Furthermore, when comparing the 1970s to 2017, they find calcification rates were “comparable” for corals over the 50-year period.
For more see https://notrickszone.com/2019/08/19/new-gbr-study-400-coral-recovery-since-2014-with-2017-growth-rates-comparable-to-the-1970s/
Long-term observations would appear to offer necessary context to claims that climate change is igniting irreparable and unprecedented harm to coral ecosystems.
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This “Global Alliance” with the media is really a hazard distorting real science from answers.
The “Global Warming Crisis” is the catch all to rob you for funding and that’s all.
The research that should be look at rather than global warming as the cause…
Did radiation from the Japan Nuclear disaster effect this reef?
How about invasive species that are foreign to the reef?
How about oil spills from ship travel?
Just some questions that should be looked at instead of this catch all global warming as the cause.
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If they think half the reef is dead then their funding should be reduced by 50%.
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That won’t happen.
They’ll increase it 10 times more.
The consultants upon consultants need more consultants to discuss.
Still no clue what to actually do.
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That’s a problem as well. Politicians LOVE being photographed handing over billboard sized novelty cheques to aid ‘good causes’. They’ll spend $50 million on an ant-drug campaign which will have no effect or, truthfully, even attempt to reduce illegal drug use. But was never the point. They can say “We spent $50 million combating the scourge of drug misery”. Turnbull gifted nearly half a billion on protecting the GBR. Obviously even HUGE amounts of dosh have no effect so why bother?
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Our Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is so terribly distraught of the LGBQ being booted out of the military decades ago in a purge that is is giving 25 million and erecting a memorial to this event.
Meanwhile still giving billions away to charities that his family were paid from.
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That’s a vexing issue: why has nothing been done about the gold rush created by MalEx444?
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Exactly my thoughts. Same as any climate data analyst who believes in the theory of man made climate change via CO2 emissions. Government minister or bureaucrat asks researcher- “Do you believe that man made CO2 emissions are the sole driver of earth’s climate?”. If the answer is yes, then the reply should be ” Well, if you are advising this, then we will cut your funding because we (as a government) are doing as much within our powers to reduce CO2 emissions without completely wrecking the Australian economy”. Therefore we dont need any further research to tell us what we already know. Then suggest there may be funding in other plausible areas of climate drivers and perhaps they might like to work in those areas instead. Fund alternative theories of drivers of climate and In 5 years time the AGW/ man made climate change science industry will have turned around.
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Has anyone else noticed that the “activists news reports” of Southern Hemisphere coral reef demise are related to the Northern Hemisphere’s reduced noise about the imminent extinction of Polar Bears?
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Soon…Endangered Species, Man due to the Polar Bears eating them in that area.
People living there are truly scared of this because of government intervention and threats.
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Cherry picking the graph clearly shows that the reef went from 25% in 1986 to 11% in 2012, that is actually over half lost.
You might also say 11% in 2012 to 24% in 2016 is a doubling.
The question, is the reef half empty or half full?
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I was thinking the same metric. You’d have the figleaf so that your side could feel good to protect you. The plan here, in my opinion, is to create a citeable ‘fact’ in literature, so that it can be used in Wikipedia and elsewhere to set the Overton window of public discussion. Small group, reef scientists are always in need of money and fame, and this serves for them. Ridd can be further silenced for being ‘anti science’.
How many years in succession one can talk about an immediate threat? And how can one push changes to energy policy when it is clear it would not make a difference at this speed (over -2% per year).
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Latest report?
It’s deja vu all over again!
January 2007
Australia’s barrier reef could die within decades: UN report
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/australia-s-barrier-reef-could-die-within-decades-un-report-1.631632
Oct 13, 2013: Global warming could kill thousands of Australians, Ieaked IPCC report warns
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/global-warming-could-kill-thousands-of-australians-ieaked-ipcc-report-warns/news-story/f21b19423a54ace809e6d6b573955358
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Who remembers the BoM’s permanent drought?
2008: “IT MAY be time to stop describing south-eastern Australia as gripped by drought and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent, one of the nation’s most senior weather experts warned yesterday.
“Perhaps we should call it our new climate,” said the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/this-drought-may-never-break-20080104-gdrvg6.html
Not the BoM …
Oct 13, 2020:
BOM’s severe weather outlook signals wet summer ahead, with flooding and more cyclones likely
“In a normal year there are between nine and 11 cyclones, with four crossing the coast. At least one cyclone has crossed the coast every year on record.
“Certainly it looks like it’s going to be more active than we’ve seen in recent years.”
With low overall numbers, predicting how many cyclones there will be in each region each year is difficult.
“We’re talking about numbers of cyclones between two and five or seven a year, so quite a small number, that really decreases the accuracy.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/bom-severe-weather-and-cyclone-outlook/12753802
Tropical Cyclone Trends
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
And, there is this quote I bookmarked/copy/pasted back then, now down the memory hole …
“Fewer cyclones with climate change – but why?
18:06 7 April 2011
“We can’t give a lucid answer at this time,” replied Knutson – which he admitted, was a concern.
One clue, however, came from the modelling. Knutson said that removing carbon dioxide from the models wiped off around half of the cyclone’s predicted intensity.”
https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/fewer-cylones-with-climate-cha.html
Coral reefs need cooler water
https://ecos.csiro.au/coral-reefs-need-cooler-water/
La Nina brings warmer waters …
“La Niña occurs when equatorial trade winds become stronger, changing ocean surface currents and drawing cooler deep water up from below.
This results in a cooling of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
The enhanced trade winds also help to pile up warm surface waters in the western Pacific and to the north of Australia.
The warming of ocean temperatures in the western Pacific means the area becomes more favourable for rising air, cloud development and rainfall.”
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a020.shtml
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Our permanent drought has given us only 98mm of rain this month; about a third of that since yesterday evening. The last lot of drought a few days ago flooded the garden and left the road outside awash.
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Who remembers the BoM map of drought areas that the Federal Government relied upon to provide drought relief funding to local government districts during 2019?
Several Councils contacted the Minister to advise that the BoM maps were inaccurate, that there was no drought as claimed in their area.
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Back in 2012, Professor Hughes was convener of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Cairns (co-hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University), wherein thousands from some 80 countries enjoyed a lovely 5-day venue including field trips. Taking it in six steps:
Step 1) Beforehand, three eminent scientists including the convener gathered at Stanford and drafted the consensus.
Step 2) They also launched an endorsement-form on their websites at COS (Centre for Ocean Solutions) and ICRS which although aimed at scientists could be actioned by the unqualified without any affiliations other than their hometown name.
Step 3) They also made the following request on the COS and ICRS websites: “To build a large base of support in preparation for the pubic launch of the statement (during the opening ceremony of the 12thInternational Coral Reef Symposium on July 9, in Cairns, Australia), please click HERE to join other scientists from around the world by adding your name to the list of endorsees.”
Step 4) The ICRS website published a list of almost 2,500 endorsees dated 6/July/2012 that being three days before the five-day symposium started.
Step 5) The consensus statement launched at the opening ceremony and various sympathetic press reports announced that over 2,000; 2,200; 2,400 or 2,500 scientists had endorsed the alarmism, depending on source.
Step 6) Convener announces success of the Symposium (This is fun) and the return home of 2,000 (two thousand) “of us” to 80 countries. Also a plea to continue endorsing the consensus statement….. more than 3,000 signatures so far and we would like to keep the momentum going.
More detail and links here
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Slightly off-topic yet I’m sure someone mentioned ‘climate emergency’ and/or the Loony Tunes Left:
It’s election day in our little Shaky Isles today and I sure hope all those Green-lipped crisis doomsayers are dressed up in their faux polar bear suits as YET MORE snow is falling on the Southern Alps and most southern towns will struggle to ‘warm up’ into double digit temperatures. Ironic, and darkly humorous, as in the week leading up to the ‘Covid Election’ as their Dear Leaderess refers to it, the bulk of media outlets have been airing – nay, pushing – the ‘latest scientific research’ claiming human CO2 has cooked the planet and if we don’t start riding bicycles and eating insects then the whole shebang will go up in flames, or something to that effect.
Jabberwocky times indeed. Maybe I’ll move to the Northern Territory or back to West Oz… certainly not Melbourne, d’oh!
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Well “Emporer” Billy G*tes of “jab anything that moves, preferably twice” has advocated another lockdown – a “climate lockdown” ( oh what fun / sarc ) to protect thier mythical goddess “gaia”.
Isnt it interesting how much these self proclaimed “masters of the universe” love lockdowns?
In reality, such a “clinare lockdown” is just UN Agenda 21 being forcibly put upon us – Afenda 21 effectively calls for locking people out of about 90% of the physical land globally and then effectively herded into cities ( like eco concentration camps – “Gaia Macht Frie” ?) where humans can be easilly “controlled”.
Worth mulling over…
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Low tides and solar radiation cause coral bleaching, not warm water.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/05/falling-sea-level-the-critical-factor-in-2016-great-barrier-reef-bleaching/
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Same here.
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‘Indeed if falling sea level was the main diver in 2016’s reef mortalities, and this can be tested, then most catastrophic assertions made by Hughes 2017 would be invalid.’ Jim Steele
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Re that data – has there been a Phil Jones quote yet?
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Quote from a government scientist doing research in the 21st century.
‘Why would I give the data to you, when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?”.
And so we beat on, boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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GBR coral bleaching was greatly reduced between 1670–1774, would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why?
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Was that the cold period?
If so, it would have been associated with accumulation of snow/ice on the poles.
Studies have shown that ice and snow are derived from water.
Perhaps the oceans provided for that accumulation and lowered sea levels to expose the coral?
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The cold LIA covered 700 years, sea level was fairly stable.
It might be associated with the Gleissberg cycle, or perhaps the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and ENSO.
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If they won’t release the data, by definition it’s not science, it’s just propaganda.
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An article about the “reproducibility crisis” in science.
No raw data, no science: another possible source of the reproducibility crisis
Tsuyoshi Miyakawa
A reproducibility crisis is a situation where many scientific studies cannot be reproduced. Inappropriate practices of science, such as HARKing, p-hacking, and selective reporting of positive results, have been suggested as causes of irreproducibility. In this editorial, I propose that a lack of raw data or data fabrication is another possible cause of irreproducibility.
https://molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13041-020-0552-2
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Back in early April the ABC (Australian national broadcaster) and others hyperventilated over reports of the worst-ever GBR bleaching (and catastrophically the third mass event in only five years; to be the new norm).
Professor Hughes (the director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University) was quoted globally, (my bold and [adds] e.g.):
The ABC online:
“The southern bleaching was very severe and we were most concerned about the south because of the naivete of the corals that are there,” he said.
…Terry Hughes spent nine days surveying 10,000 kilometres of the reef [Imagine the logistical difficulties in making SUBJECTIVE assessments and data compilations in a fixed-wing aircraft in Hughes’ selection preferences among the over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands].
“They hadn’t bleached before, which means there are more corals and more of the corals that are particularly susceptible to heat stress,” he said…
In the last two bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, about half the coral on the Great Barrier Reef was estimated to have died…
…Bleaching in 2016 was more severe than 2020, but was concentrated in the north of the Great Barrier Reef.
In those events, the areas hit hardest were in the remote northern stretches of the reef… The southern and central reef had mostly been spared. This time those parts were not so lucky…
“For the first time, the Barrier Reef has bleached in all three major regions: in the north, in the central region and in the southern regions,” Professor Hughes said…
The New York Times:
…The reef was being ravaged by bleaching yet again [after the 50% mortality in 2016 and 2017], this time across an even wider area.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen severely bleached reefs along the whole length of the reef, in particular, the coastal reefs,” said Professor Hughes… …“Those are bleached everywhere.”
The survey amounts to an updated X-ray for a dying patient, with the markers of illness being the telltale white of coral that has lost its color, visible from the air and in the water.
The mass bleaching indicates that corals are under intense stress from the waters around them, which have been growing increasingly hotter.
The world’s oceans, which absorb 93 percent of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases that humans send into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, are warming up 40 percent faster on average than scientists estimated six years ago.
So, what does the Australian government’s GBRMPA (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority) latest report say today?
Coral bleaching and disease: Our Eye on the Reef network reported isolated instances of low severity coral bleaching and damage in all management areas. Isolated instances of low severity coral disease were reported from all areas, except the Far Northern management area.
Crown-of-thorns starfish: Crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks continue to impact reef health across all management areas.
Earlier GBRMPA (and AIMS) reports also dismantle some of the specific claims for the southern region, particularly Heron Island’s “first ever event”.
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A tragedy.
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I hate to ask the question but did Hughes or other bleachists bother to get out on a boat or plane and actually look at the reef?
Or are they like climate “scientists” and do all their work with modelling and don’t bother to look out the window?
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As a taxpayer I am disgusted that the raw data is not being handed over. It is the property of those who paid for it, the taxpayer.
If it exists then it must be handed over.
If it isn’t handed over the implication is either that it doesn’t exist OR it doesn’t support the claim of massive bleaching. In either case we have a very serious problem.
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I agree with David. This is not the only situation where raw data is being deliberatively hidden. What about the BOM and its fudging of raw data in relation to AGW? We are in a world where “science” has nothing to do with data and proper hypothesis…only with infantile modelling and conclusions. I salute Peter Ridd and his crusade against the Inquisition (aka JCU).
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There is one major problem with this article: the AIMS/Peter Ridd data also shows a 50% decline over 25 years just as the ARC Center of Excellence claims (see BBC article). The only two significant differences that I can see between the two viewpoints are the respective time frames (1986-2010 for AIMS, 1995-2020 for ARC) and the data trends after 2015 (AIMS shows a partial recovery, ARC according to the BBC implies a continued decline due to bleaching events). To claim that the two sets of research are diametrically different in my opinion is not supported by the data, at least not by the data before 2015.
The bigger issue is, can these changes be attributed to climate change? Since 1970 the maximum temperature rise in Queensland has been 0.5 °C, but there was none before that (see here). So, is it realistic to expect that a 0.5 °C change in sea temperature over the last 50 years would eviscerate a set of organisms that have survived countless climate shocks over more than 160 million years? Or is there another explanation for what is going on?
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10/10 for this piece, Jo.
The Academic world has truly lost the plot.
And, governments that continue to think that if they pay their ransom to the green extremists they’ll be left alone, have yet to learn a fundamental truth about extremists.
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