The new AIMS annual survey is in with the shocking result that not only was last year a record, but this year is even better. There is more coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef than ever recorded. We’ve had four bleaching events in the last seven years, and record hottest ever heat, the highest CO2 levels recorded since we invented ways to record CO2, and yet, despite all that, the reef is thriving.
AIMS, Coral Reef Survey
In 36 years of measuring coral cover on the reef, it’s never been better.
Record coral cover for Great Barrier Reef: Australian Institute of Marine Science
Graham Lloyd, The Australian
The Great Barrier Reef has set a new record for hard coral cover over two-thirds of its 2300km length, results of the Australian Institute of Marine Science official long-term monitoring program show.
AIMS program leader Mike Emslie said the results were “good news” and showed that the Reef had “dodged a bullet” in bleaching this year.
“But the fact we have had four bleaching events in seven years is a major concern and highlights the impact of climate change here and now,” he said. “We are in uncharted territory and still trying to understand what this means.”
Or rather it highlights how irrelevant climate change is. If it had been a lowest ever year, they would have blamed climate change, yet when it’s a highest ever year, we still blame climate change as if great coral cover is a … bad thing?
Peter Ridd, of course, fearlessly speaks the truth and says the bleeding obvious — that we should have “a national celebration”:
“This brilliant result is proof that many science institutions have been misleading the public about the state of the Reef,” he said.
Bleaching happened in 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2022. The World Heritage Committee is still deciding if it should be listed as officially endangered. Possibly we should worry that rampant coral growth might deprive us of bare ocean spaces in between.
Peter Ridd congratulates AIMS on its data collection, and they really do look like they are doing a good job. They monitor 87 reefs, do 3,888 mantra ray tows (as the technique is called) which covers 881 kilometers of reef. (See this video). They tow people along behind a boat over the same reefs each year and record the amount of hard coral cover. As long as the technique appears so comprehensive and honest, it appears to be public money well spent.
The worst recent bleaching was in the northern Great Barrier Reef, yet this section has the most spectacular recovery.
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Yet defying all the odds, the Northern Reef has recovered so well.
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And which marine biologists predicted this kind of recovery? How well do we understand coral growth if we cannot explain why these natural cycles appear to dominate and describe which factors are driving it?
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Coral reef cover is not “everything” and as the AIMS spokeswoman suggests, diversity matters too. We know some kinds of corals (like Acropora corals) can grow rapidly, while others (like Pocillopora) are slower growing but survive bleaching better and replace the spaces left vacant by the death of others*. Perhaps the shifting species patterns are a problem, or maybe this is just the way it has always been. We do know that corals already have the genes to survive another 250 years of climate change, that they can use epigenetic tricks to adapt to warmer and “more acidic” water and that the Great Barrier Reef has 112 protected tough spots that survive and replenish the rest after the bleaching. After millions of years of asteroids, volcanoes, wild temperature changes and dramatic shifts in atmospheric gases, (plus sea level swings of 125m!) we ought be shocked if corals did not have a full toolkit to cope with rapid changes. We know one vulnerable coral type adapted to ocean acidification in just 6 months, and that fish prefer to live in tanks which also have large daily CO2 swings in carbon dioxide.
We know that corals bleached all the way back in 1862, and probably have for millions of years, there were just not many scuba divers to record it.
This study is an absolute blockbuster in terms of busting the myth that corals are on the verge of extinction. Spread the word.
REFERENCES
Long Term Monitoring of the Coral Reef Condition, 2021/22, AIMS
Monitoring the Great Barrier Reef, AIMS,
*Edited 5 Aug to mention Pocillopora as well.
And I understand the annual whale count of migrating whales moving north along the NSW coast and rounding Tacking Point has been very positive this year. The whales are counted on the same day each year and are making their way to the waters of the Reef. Steady growth over time of a healthy and growing population.
So where is all the proof that the waters of the Reef are in a disastrous state?
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What do big fish eat?
Ans: Little fish.
What do we eat?
Ans: Little fish.
OK the big whales eat the littlest fish, they can’t catch mackerel, but you get my drift.
Am I serious? Maybe.
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There are two distinct areas of climate change evidence. Remarkable similarity of these events are easily seen when you realise there is one driving force behind them.
Coral reefs are near extinction when Universities & other political & “study groups” can smell government “aid” in the form of $$$ by the millions or when some politicians need to boost their virtue signalling prowess.
Then comes sea levels in the Pacific Ocean, which rise in direct proportion to the amount of $$$ of Australian tax payer funds on offer to “nations about to do a Titanic type sinking”.
Another phenomenon is that of our politicians doing their best to destroy their own country.
One must assume therefore that there is someone or something offering great rewards for perpetuating falsities OR that they are quite simply devious, immoral liars in search of credible virtues.
There is a 3rd guilty party in this fiasco. The Media, the vast majority of which back the virtue signallers & the money grubs with their scientific ignorance aided & abetted by there obvious lack of grammar & even spelling abilities.
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With gullible labor back in the house on the hill, money will be flowing hell west and crooked to all the climatebaggers.
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“One must assume therefore that there is someone or something offering great rewards for perpetuating falsities”. Correct. The ever-greedy billionaires behind the renewable energy scam are the ones perpetuating falsities. They don’t care how many lives they ruin, or even how many countries they ruin. All they care about is more and more and more dollars flowing into their coffers. The source of this money is of course government subsidies and mandates for renewable energy, and the total is already well over a trillion dollars. That’s around $3,000 for every American person. And still the greedy bustards want more. Jail is too good for them.
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their
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It’s an upside down world, when the so called Green Blob devotees are not cheering when their pet cause the Barrier Reef makes a spectacular recovery from bleaching and shows great resilience. Their bottom lips couldn’t get any lower right now. Meanwhile sane people are delighted to see our most beautiful natural feature showing true Aussie grit.
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No! No! You must realize that entire Coral Sea is now irreversibly transformed into bouillabaisse! Film at 11!
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Surely the government(s) will take the credit for this recovery, which they will then claim is temporary.
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You are a keen observer; you know that all governments think that they are illimitedly powerful, even more powerful than the heating effect of CO2: they order, nature obeys. Or, they ordered, nature obeyed…
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Don’t worry David.
They will.
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I’m sure they will claim the reef’s recovery started on May 22nd – the day after they were elected (or predicted they would be).
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ABC Radio yesterday broadcast comments by one of the JCU researchers, who claimed that the variety of coral that was damaged is particularly susceptible but recovers rapidly and the concern was that the regrowth will be just as likely to be severely damaged by future extreme weather events (and just as likely to subsequently recover).
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So, at the ABC it is possible to eat your cake and have it too.
Courtesy of the public purse.
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“Surely the government(s) will take the credit for this recovery, which they will then claim is temporary.”
They may not want to take credit as other sources are sceptical of the findings published yesterday in The Australian
See link below and references therein
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-environment-oceans-idUSL2N2XI1NV
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Ian, any journalist at Reuters/Guardian/BBC etc that didn’t cast doubt on the reef results (published by AIMS, not The Australian) would get sacked. As usual, there is a reason Ad Hom arguments are a known fallacy…
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So the bad news is in; coral reefs are expanding, rainforests are growing, deserts are diminishing, the Earth is greening, food production is exploding, dams are filling, climate related deaths are shrinking and ecosystems are flourishing. Damn that Global Warming!
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The price of power is in negative territory tonight.
The wind must be blowing right.
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” What if we get too many reefs? ”
It will be announced as an unprecedented catastrophe caused by climate change…
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The use of the word unprecedented is unprecedented.
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Just spent a week plus on the Ningaloo reef,looking great
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I cannot believe this technique has been consistent over the long period that it has been used (starting in 1985 ?).
Each divers assessments would be subject to their overall philosophical bias and that would be different under different narratives of climate change alarmism.
And I expect that in more recent times there has been an influx of willing climate activists offering to be towed at minimal or no cost.
Surely we are in for some “homogenisation” of the earlier manta tow data because the accuracy of recording will be questioned just like early temperature recording has been.
Some type of coral-recognition software will be developed and they will quickly stop any manual recording in parallel to the “automated” procedure.
This is the same as the changeover to automated temperature recording and we know that BOM have not overlapped those procedures like most serious scientists would.
Now tell me this is not going to happen.
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When they feel the need to be seen doing something they will do that.
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“On page 9 of Peter Ridd’s new book ‘Reef Heresy’ it is explained that while the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) reports on coral cover, there are no direct counts of anything. Rather ‘observers’ are towed behind a boat from which they ‘estimate’ coral cover every few hundred metres.
Peter makes the analogy of someone estimating people’s weight after standing on a street corner for some minutes and looking at everyone who walks past. There is no set of scales and no recording the identity of each person, and then calculating an average. What AIMS does is more analogous to observing everyone who walks past for 2 minutes and then writing down an overall guesstimate weight.”
Jennifer Marohasy
24th March 2021
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You’ve got to love climate science …..such an exacting discipline full of robust, accurate and verifiable data.
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“Peter makes the analogy of someone estimating people’s weight after standing on a street corner for some minutes and looking at everyone who walks past. There is no set of scales and no recording the identity of each person, and then calculating an average. What AIMS does is more analogous to observing everyone who walks past for 2 minutes and then writing down an overall guesstimate weight.”
“Peter Ridd congratulates AIMS on its data collection, and they really do look like they are doing a good job. They monitor 87 reefs, do 3,888 mantra ray tows (as the technique is called) which covers 881 kilometers of reef. (See this video). They tow people along behind a boat over the same reefs each year and record the amount of hard coral cover. As long as the technique appears so comprehensive and honest, it appears to be public money well spent.”
I wonder what changed Peter Ridd’s view
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They are looking at the same set of reefs for 36 years. 844 kilometers. Yes, I would prefer some more objective technique, but it sure beats a few random photos, or shots from a plane. Repeat recordings for 36 years in the same spots makes it better than most BOM thermometer sites, where both the instruments, box, location, and raw data have changed in the last 36 years.
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Exactly Jo.
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With all of the money being spent and I wonder where that 444 million dollars that Malcolm Turnbull apparently authorised to be ‘granted’ to a GBR mob went? There could be underwater drones fitted with cameras to patrol the GBR with all images collected at a Central Control Centre and recorded for posterity. How come the ‘Clever Country’ is not on the case here?
There seems to me to be a serious lack of use of technology here vis a vis all of the Taxpayer dollars being allocated (and likely being misused).
At the very least, there needs to be an Auditor General review of how that 444 million dollars was allocated and eventually wasted – Err, I mean spent.
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OK, It’s all good, but a reef is a precious thing and can’t just grow out of nothing so the header is crap.
I put it to you that if a reef which towers out of the depths “collapses” then that reef will NEVER grow again, like the Seven oops Six sisters off Great Ocean Road. Once gone ……
I am as pleased as anyone that the reef is regenerating but don’t get smug, neither Ridd nor Marohassy are old enough to have seen the GBR in its splendour before the COT invasion. I am now too old [and there are no day trips anyway] to check out its health. I went on the last day trip out of town and thought what I saw was awful.
It will take another 50 years to truly regenerate. Don’t drop your guard, GW is not the only threat. If you think that you are a fool.
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What you saw was awful?
Any pictures, perhaps. You must have had a camera then, you may be old but not that old.
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Maybe we have a Crusty Curmudgeon™ among us.
If we chipped in and got him a camera he could be regenerated.
I do have a camera, am old, but hope to hang in long enough to document the impending climate (and coral) catastrophe. I’ll send the digital images to Elon on Mars.
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My memories of the Reef go back to the late 60’s and early 70’s – not as long as you Hanrahan but a fair slice. Fringing reefs at Green island, Hook and Daydream further south seem to be stable to me. There are many factors. Perceptions over time can be difficult.
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“like the Seven oops Six sisters off Great Ocean Road. Once gone ……”
Aren’t they the ‘Apostles’.
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A far more tourist-friendly name than the Sow and Piglets.
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Yea. Got mixed up with the Three Sisters in the Blue Mts.
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ONLY reefs that can possibly physically collapse are the atoll-type one perched on top of extinct / dormant mid-ocean volcano “cinder comes” The biggest one i have visited is Kwajalein. Interesting place.
If my dive experiences on the GBR are any guide, the ‘reef” is well and truly footed on solid substrates of the continental shelf.
Furthermore, there has CLEARLY been massive vertical movement of both ocean levels AND reef “beds” since the coral polyps decided to settle there.
There ids NO way for coral to get enough light to survive at the depths of many of these “footings. Not enough of the right sort of light to let the zooxanthellas do their thing. Coral ‘polyps” are tiny beasties related to jellyfish and they contain these algae-like plants within for “mutual benefit”.
ALL of this action is taking place on the Australasian Plate, which has been steadily trundling North-West-ish” for many millions of years.Three guesses why the huge island of Sumatra is “kinked away from Java at a funny angle? An supplementary guesses as to what that kinking” did to the geomorphology of the Sunda Strait and adjacent land? The whole planetary “rock-show” (literally) is NOT set in Gaia’s home-brew “aspic”; it is a HUGELY dynamic system.
Australia used to be a hot-bed of vulcanism. Think about the Undara lava tubes, crater lakes Eacham and Barrine, between 10,000 (Pleistocene) and two million (Pliocene) years old, the Glasshouse mountains, the mega-caldera that is the bed of the NSW Norther Rivers district, sites extending this all the way south to Mount Gambier. Never mind the several ACTIVE volcanoes in Antarctica.
The early explorers in Oz went into the Never-Never seeking the “Inland Sea”. Right idea, just a hundred million years too late.It is the underlying geology that drive so much.
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Hanrahan,
Very few people have been to the Outer Reef, where the reef meets the wide Pacific Ocean. It is mostly several tens of km offshore. We have tried several times to get there, but weather stopped several planned amphibious flight hires and some fast boat trips. Never did see the full beauty. Not able to comment much on blogs because I lack the observational authority.
Did you get to the Reef Proper? If so, you are a lucky b… Cheers Geoff S
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I think to this list should be added the very obvious dramatic sea level changes. I don’t remember the exact figure offhand, but sea levels rose something like 120-140 meters since the younger Dryas. Just sayin’…
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The rise of 120-140 m. began about 20,000 ybp while the Younger Dryas was 12,900 to 11,700 ybp. Charts of post-glacial sea level do show the pause of the return to glacial conditions, that being the Younger Dryas, and then another 60 m. rise to the recent slowdown about 7,000 years ago.
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Thanks for the clarification of a minor point that I think was clear in my post that I wasn’t completely sure about the dates, etc. The larger and more important point that I was trying to make was that corals not only survived millions of years of environmental disasters, but also survived/came back from major changes in sea levels in the very recent past.
It was intended to lend support to the idea that corals “have a full toolkit to cope with rapid changes,” not a scientific treatise on post-glacial sea level changes and timing.
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I agree with the minor point aspect. You were clear, but the person that quotes you might not be so careful.
Anyway, I go to Jennifer Marohasy’s site for coral information.
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Point taken. There are a lot more well-considered and intelligent comments than mine here, and I include yours. If someone drills down into the comments to quote li’l ol’ me, then they have much bigger issues.
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Too obvious, Phil, for a modern scholar to notice.
The historical (yes, historical) record of sea level changes stands as clear proof that the”global warming” science is nonsense.
Everything we see today survived it.
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“After millions of years of asteroids, volcanoes, wild temperature changes and dramatic shifts in atmospheric gases,…”
You forgot to mention grandstanding politicians, grant seeking Universities and leftist perfessers.
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Phil, If you search on the age of the reef and sea levels at the time I think you’ll find that the sea was far lower then than now, coming out of the ice age. So much so that the GBR where there is 50m of water would have been shallow fringing reef which grew upwards as the sea rose forming bommies. This will can not be repeated so what we have is all we’ll ever have. New reefs can form in the shallows of course but not in 50m.
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The GBR as we know it has died and regenerated many times since corals first evolved. That’s because the area occupied by the GBR has repeatedly been left high and dry by falling sea levels and then re-covered by rising sea levels. Like so many species, the coral species can move in order to survive.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-water_coral
https://www.cnn.com/2012/10/26/world/asia/australia-deep-water-coral-reef/index.html
search images with “deep water corals”
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Perhaps some politicians will read it. And even more perhaps one of them might ask the government about the treatment of Peter Ridd.
I assume the possession of a brain here. May be an incorrect assumption.
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Hello Ed. Thank you for your optimistic and positive attitude. I hope you are correct about Peter Ridd being noticed and that there is some justice to restore everything the Global Warming Grafters took from him. Some things cannot be repaired when the wicked global warming grafters attacks are so viciously damning and false. But, any restored justice and fairness would be of great help.
To me the good news here is that Peter Ridd stood firm with the truth and could not be bullied or bribed!
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This is disastrous, for Climythologists.
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Ohh The Barrier Reef.
For decades it has been predicted by “experts” of its impending demise.
I remember an article published by the “The Sun” Newspaper in the early 1980’s That the Crown of thorns was going to decimate the reef within a few years.
None of the doomsaying reports have resolved to be true.
In the southern hemisphere, Coral can be found at Lord Howe Island. Water temperature 18-23 degrees Celcius.
Dive there, I recommend it.
Indonesia has thousands of coral reefs, I have hit enough of those whilst surfing there for 30 years.
The coral is fine and healthy, though I report my body was not on several occasions…. as coral inside a human is not pleasant.
The seawater temp can reach 31 degrees celcius in the Indonesion islands.
Now our maligned Barrier Reef middles those latitudes.
The water temperature range sits between those of Lord Howe and Indonesia.
I have dived on the length of the Barrier reef scores of times over the last 3 decades. It is the same, same beautiful.
I wonder though, there are coral reefs off the coast of Western Australia… Why are they never mentioned in a scientific report?
Of all the thousands and and countless thousands of reefs around the world
Why is it that that The Barrier reef is the one to fearmonger over?
I think every one needs to chill.. The Barrier Reef is fine. Coral is a living organism. It recovers just like I do.
Do yourself a favour and dive the reef.
Important Postcript:
(I must confess. I only recover from any heavy contact with a foreign coral reef…
When I have painfully removed said coral from my body using an antiseptic, knife, forceps and a toothbrush to srub and clean the wound. Take my advice, It really hurts.)
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” painfully removed said coral ”
William,
I’m wondering if you did this more than once?
“I have dived on the length of the Barrier reef scores of times … ”
I envy you!
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John,
In reply,
Your quote:
“I’m wondering if you did this more than once?”
End quote.
My answer:
Yes
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Don’t forget the Sydney Morning Herald announcement in April? 1971 that The Reef would be dead by Christmas.
It was the SMH that died.
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In places SMH = “Shaking My Head”
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How about a big shout out to Jennifer Marohasy.
Her last 3 posts have enlightening text and beautiful photos.
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Very well said and you can read a lot more about the GBR here –
https://jennifermarohasy.com/jenns-blog/
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The southern part of the Reef has not done too well. Best keep the GBR in context. Overall, the Reef is thriving. The idiots who state that AGW is the cause of the Reef dying is laughable. The principal factor of the Reef’s future is the PH of the ocean, not a few extra CO2 molecules in the atmosphere.
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It would be very rare to have something that is 1000s of kilometres long in uniform condition (good or bad)
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Yes, just look at the Bruce Highway for instance.
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Ronin,
Sounds like a British comedy skit comparing the housing conditions of the impoversished class. “You had a cardboard box?”.
I first dove the Bruce Highway Townsville to Brisbane about 1958. Crashed doing it 1961, lucky to survive.
Those days perhaps half that length had bitumen.
Corrugations play hell with the leaf suspension/friction shockers of a 1949 MG TC. Potholes simply snap springs. Kidneys get pain.
The locals talked of the “Sarina-Marlborough stretch” with fear that was earned. Windscreens can break when rocks hit them.
Some seasons, you could see a dead wallaby roadkill as frequent as one for every kilometer. We used to make a game to stifle boredom, spot the dead wallaby before the odometer flips to another km or another mile before 1966.
Memory lane. Some stuff is best to forget. Geoff S
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The so-called ” horror stretch ” on the inland route from Marlborough to Sarina became folklore. I drove in a Kombi in 1971 smashed windsreens by the score – mostly drivers side. The coastal route is more trouble free.
00
Whenever I have heard reports of the “acidification” of the ocean,I have looked at the numbers. What they reveal is probably a reduction in alkalinity because sea water is usually the alkaline side of neutral anyway .Seawater pH naturally fluctuates between 7.66 and 8.4 within decades and is buffered. The word “acidification” is used to scare us- people think “oh no, battery acid type conditions”. It’s not.
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Interesting that cool La Ninas have come to dominate over warm El Ninos recently.
My contention is that solar variations alter the balance between El Nino and La Nina by affecting global cloudiness.
If this goes on the world will cool.
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There are some interesting comments and links here about the tolerance of coral to natural changes in pH, including normal natural daily changes.
Even if ocean pH was changing as claimed, and those extreme claims seem to be not supported by fact or even possible, corals are not being destroyed by supposed anthropogenic changes in pH.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/gaia-and-coral-regulate-ocean-ph.html
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Sorry, that wasn’t a response but was meant to be a new comment.
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It was Malcolm Turnbulls unrequested, unexpected gift of $444 Million to Lucy and friends which saved the reef.
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(Don’t paint Malcolm as generous please, it was our money he gave away, and without our permission)
Maybe that began the resurrection of the reef, but remember, “post hoc ergo propter hoc”, It was the ascension of Albo that caused the report of the reef’s resurrection.
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It’s amazing how there is no problem with the Reef now that the Labor regime is in power federally.
Plus as TdeF mentioned above, Turnbull’s unexpected “gift” of our hard-earned taxes to the twelve members of the GBR Foundation who found about about this massive wealth transfer to themselves via the news, not a formal communication.
Now there’s no problem, are they going to give the remains of the money back to taxpayers, assuming there’s anything Left? I didn’t think so.
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Certainly less the $134 million ‘administration’ fees predicted? How much does it cost to administer money these days? And where is the rest?
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No matter whether The GBR is in fine fettle a Labor Environmental edict, no doubt to pacify Greens ambitions has cancelled Clive Palmer’s new coal project in the Bowen Basin that is 100’s of km distant from the coast, on the grounds that it might pollute the GBR.
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Why are the Left opposed to that?
That coal will only benefit the Chicomms, Australians aren’t allowed to use it. So the Left should be fine with that.
Chicomms, the world’s largest CO2 emitter by far, have no emissions limits and absolutely no complaints from the Left about their “carbon pollution” (sic).
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There are some interesting comments and links here about the tolerance of coral to natural changes in pH, including normal natural daily changes.
Even if ocean pH was changing as claimed, and those extreme claims seem to be not supported by fact or even possible, corals are not being destroyed by supposed anthropogenic changes in pH.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/gaia-and-coral-regulate-ocean-ph.html
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Well done for the hardcorals. Please note that the pics show the mix between hard and soft corals very well. The question then becomes ‘why are the hard corals out competing (for space) their soft cousins?’
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There are none so blind as those that will not see!
One plausible individual in particular!
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The sort of person that sits in a forest wringing their hands and imagines the big nasty gum trees are bullying the tree ferns.
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<strong, eucalypts are "invasive"; they out-compere fluffy rain-forest types after a fire.
They also change the soil by te constant shedding of thei leaves and bark. The result is a Podzol type soil that is not so conducive to the growth of other tree types. Furthermore, most eucalyptus species of my acquaintance ere "fire-climax" types; i.e., the scattered seed pods are seriously tough and require a quick once-over from a fire to "crack" the pods for germination.
Serous players in the great outback.
As many Australians have long known and Californians are slowly learning, a serious fire in a dense eucalyptus forest is not to be welcomed.
For those wondering how they got to California; back in the late 19th century some enterprising types identified several species as being ideal for wharf pilings and such. So, they imported a bunch of seeds and went to work. Interestingly, by importing seeds, they planted forests of "exotic" vegetation that had NO predators, parasites or disease that usually take their toll. What took a while to discover was the exciting potential for catastrophic fires. Fires that are such that they create their own "weather"; with self-generated local winds driving crown fires and huge clouds of hot embers before it.
Given recent events here in Oz, I suspect the tree-huggers and feral bureaucrats have systematically "memory-holed" that information with one hand whilst stretching out their other hand for "grants".
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Well spotted!
Obviously dropped it into the wrong tab.
Cheers!
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On the other hand, it does fit with a remark in a post just above, about “big nasty gum trees are bullying the tree ferns”.
The place is awash with a flood of dodgy “science on ALL matters. Current favourite topics include the GBR, assorted flora and fauna, virology, meteorology,….
It is POLITICAL SCIENCE ALL THE WAY DOWN.
It will NOT “end well”. Nor is it so intended.
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Hard corals form naturally as ‘building blocks’ for future growth of soft corals.
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Yes, el Gordo, but even on the most isolated atoll, hard corals are always the smaller percentage, with the soft corals being dominant, and way more colourful
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Peter, see my comment below about the concept of “pioneer species” which used to be a well known concept in biology and ecology, back in the day.
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yes David, that concept still exists, but here we are talking about existing communities, comprising both hard and soft corals growing on a substrate that is close to the water surface (1-10 metres depth) The bleaching events affect some species more than others, but there are always some that survive, they are just hard to see. Do not be misled by the photos showing only bleached coral. The GBR is special because of the diversity of coral species contained within it. The change hard coral growth in the northern and central sections is good, but it is at the expense of other species, which is new.
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‘ … but it is at the expense of other species, which is new.’
Its not new, hard coral is a natural function of the system which allows soft coral to build upon. Rejoice comrade, the GBR is saved.
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It is the hard coral that we associate with “The Reef”, that give it its splendour.
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What PF is saying is that the reef is behaving just like it always has.
No evidence of any “climate” issues what so ever. Nada, Zip.. !!
Yes, we all knew that !
30
They are still slaughtering the crown of thorns starfish and have even developed a hunter-killer robot to do this.
How can they claim it is an introduced species when their larvae float freely on the oceans and can colonise anywhere the ocean currents take them?
It looks like the predictions in Requiem for the Reef (1976) and Crown of Thorns: The Death of the Barrier Reef? (1972) never came true, eh?
Poor starfish. Who speaks up for the starfish?
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As usual, follow the money trail!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-19/crown-of-thorns-funds-funnelled-companies-link-tourism-operators/10257306
SEE LINK FOR REST
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I have never heard any informed person say the COT was introduced and QIT made that killer drone ages ago but I have never heard of it being deployed except around Green Is. maybe.
The COT is still the biggest danger to the reef. If kept under control all will be well.
05
Cyclones are also devastating.
10
We are in a decades long low in cyclone activity so that too will have been a favourable influence.
20
Super Albo cures sick reefs in a single parliamentary bound.
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Yep, and soon someone at the UN will claim they’ve halted climate change/ global warming because the earth’s temperature hasn’t really increased at all over the last 20 years. They’ll be saying if it wasn’t for all those CO2 emissions agreements, the level of CO2 would have already climbed to 600 ppm (or whatever ). Remember they cured the Hole in the Ozone Layer – not, it’s still there, just changes in size depending on seasons and probably some other unknown factor.
70
This is why Global Warming™️ was rebranded Climate Change™️.
The not so subtle switcheroo fooled most normies but covered all bases for the green cabal. Whatever happens can now be blamed on ” carbon ” emissions. It’s devilishly clever actually. These guys are pros.
70
Notice how the coral-catastrophists are already rewriting the narrative by claiming it’s the “wrong” species growing back?
I don’t know whether that claim is true or not. NEVER believe a “scientist” that earns money via the Klimate Kult. But assuming it was true, THEN:
They don’t teach real biology or science in general anymore but back in the day there was this idea that the species that first colonised a barren or previously devastated biodiverse area were called pioneer species. After they were established, others would follow and the mix would change. That will happen at the GBR as well.
50
Refer to my comment at #19.1
40
Same thing happens after bushfires. Things come back at different rates.
70
Hard coral is much slower growing than the soft, but it is the hard stuff people want to see.
40
Definitely true that:).
20
Never forget that during the warmer Holocene optimum sea levels on our Aussie east coast were about 1.5 metres higher than today.
See ABC Catalyst “Narabeen man” and many studies quoted and linked by Ken Stewart’s excellent posts.
The warmer Holocene optimum lasted for thousands of years and co2 levels were about 280 ppm at that time and the GBR had to survive warmer temps compared to the 20th and early 21 st centuries.
BTW Peter Ridd is a quiet hero and he should be re-hired and compensated ASAP and all the other con merchants and so called scientists should be sacked.
101
Thanks for that link.
10
COULD IT BE….?
I’m not very optimistic but consider this as a pre-hypothesis thought.
Could it be that certain people are starting to realise that the lies of anthropogenic global warming are unsustainable, even among a totally dumbed-down population and this “miracle” of reef recovery is a construction to give the promoters of the anthropogenic global warming fraud an easy way out?
Might further “miracles” and discoveries follow to show that the “climate emergency” is over?
Probably not, it’s just a wild thought I’m having…
70
Its a turning point in the debate.
10
Run off from farming activities has been blamed for demise of the reef with the floods and rainfall this past 2 years being so high surely this has increased so can we use fertilizers again
50
There have been no big floods in Nth. Qld. in the last couple of years.
If run off was a big problem the reef out from the Burdekin would be suffering badly because it drains so much cattle country and some graziers have allowed too much erosion and cow dung runoff.
But excess nutrient would promote algae which would choke coral. I am unaware of any algae problem. I suppose that would be “coral greening”.
Remember the GBR is 70 km from the coast, plenty of time to get sea sick on the way. 🙂
60
Here Ken Stewart lists numerous studies of the much warmer Holocene optimum along our Aussie east coast and he accurately calls this the world’s biggest thermometer.
Of course our previous Eemian inter-glacial was much warmer than our present Holocene and the Co2 Coalition site claims it was up to 8 c warmer at that time.
YET our GBR survived that much warmer period as well.
And AGAIN co2 levels during the much warmer Eemian were about 280 ppm. THINK about it and WAKE UP.
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2021/08/23/the-worlds-biggest-thermometer/
80
Excellent link.
Not sure about that 8℃ claim as it may have been 2.5-3℃ warmer. Ocean levels seem to have been 6 metres higher than present but there was a claim that massive tectonic uplift in the Caribbean might have had an influence.
In any case Modern Man (Homo sapiens sapiens) survived this. Will he survive the arrival of Homo woke-sapiens?
50
Graeme No 3 here’s the link to the Co2 Coalition’s claim about the 8 c warmer Eemian inter-glacial.
See their statement and the link to the 2013 study. Who knows?
BTW fully evolved modern Humans are now thought to have existed for at least 200,000 years, yet about 10 years ago the estimate was only about 100 to 150 K years.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/the-last-interglacial-was-8c-14f-warmer-than-today/
21
Neville:
I read that as a claim, not that the whole earth became 8℃ warmer. Could that be 8℃ warmer in Greenland? Nothing unusual about that – temperature rise after the Younger Dryas for example.
The estimate for the existance of modern human is around 210K years in East Africa but 270K for possible types in West Africa (Algeria way). But judging by recent political behaviour I think that some of the population is lagging behind.
00
Fair dinkum some of these so called scientists should take an aspirin and then have a break.
But I suppose the kiddies well BELIEVE them and that’s what they want.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/04/peter-kalmus-cries-on-camera/
50
More reef, more polar bears, more crop production, larger biosphere ….
And they call this an emergency :D)
100
Next they’ll be claiming there are too many polar bears and the seals are threatened.
Because “climate change”.
The BS and junk science just never ends.
90
Yes Serge Wright and Humans are supposed to be heading for EXTINCTION according to clueless Biden, AOC, Greta, much of the MSM etc.
But the DATA proves Humans are much wealthier and Healthier compared to the last 200 K years.
The first billion occurred in 1800 and then….
1927 2 bn
then 1960 3 bn.
then 1974 4 bn.
then 1987 5 bn.
then 1999 6 bn.
then 2011 7 bn.
then 2023 8 bn? presently 7.9+ bn.
See Macrotrends site for UN data.
Of course average global life expectancy now at a record 73 years and the world is GREENING because of the extra co2.
And deaths from extreme weather events have dropped by 95% since 1920. Yet 5.6 + billion more people are at risk since 1920, so how is any of this possible?
71
Is James Cook University going to give Professor Ridd his job back now?
70
Don’t think so.
Peter wasn’t sacked for the accuracy of his science and his skill in his craft, he was removed because he brought the spotlight onto the failings of those administering the institutions.
The motive for not reinstating the Professor remains.
90
Wasn’t he sacked because he questioned the scientific body itself, brought it into disrepute ? I cant quiet recall but it certainly wasn’t over his science (though it was because he broke ranks obviously) but rather they got a technicality on him. I was pretty sure he would lose that appeal.
00
Philip,
It may or may not be of interest to you.
From the website of “Industrial Relations Claims”. A law firm. Affiliated with the “Supportah Network”
Re the case of Peter Ridd.
Quote:
“The confidentiality of all parties involved in the management of Misconduct and Serious Misconduct processes will be respected and all information gathered and recorded will remain confidential…
However, Ridd failed to keep his mouth shut. Instead, he once again publicly criticised JCU for taking action against him. He even launched a public fundraising campaign to pay for legal fees.”
End quote.
Ok, That is a public comment from the law firm mentioned above.
As someone that investigates and supplies reports to the NSW coroner. I cannot comment on the extract above.
I provide evidence to the court that cannot be compromised by perceived prejudice.
It is for you to judge.
Philip,
Please reasearch, make your own findings and do it subjectively.
Then comment freely.
Unlike some of us, you have a voice that is legally able to do so..
00
Citizen researcher Willis Eschenbach who often reports at WUWT has a skill for producing global graphics from satellite data. The one pertinent to the reef bleaching/recovery cycle is his movie of the 1997/98 Niño/Niña ocean water pumping cycle, showing that satellite-measured sea levels can change by ±0.3m on either side of the Pacific Ocean depending on the state of the Niño/Niña cycle. Eschenbach’s Figure 2 movie is fascinating – sea levels in the Gulf of Carpentaria are particularly susceptible to the Niño/Niña cycle, but stop the movie at about 6 seconds and note the “blue blob” of -0.3m water level sitting on the reef.
You could dismiss ±0.3m variations as inconsequential, but then have a look at Figure 6 in the paper “Climate Drivers of the 2015 Gulf of Carpentaria mangrove dieback“, where the satellite determined drop of -0.3m (about 16 secs into the movie) matches with a -2m anomaly in figure 6. The rise/fall in sea levels in the reef area may not be as great, but may be enough to affect the corals.
Wouldn’t it be good if some of those GBR millions in research money were spent on producing sea level graphics similar to Eschenbach’s to help find out why the coral die-back occurred during la Niña years – were the corals actually exposed in places as well as affected by warmer waters?
80
Indeed. And you know what. There is not a single ‘expert’ who can predict when the next Nino or Nina will be. That is because no one knows what actually causes them. And as long as they don’t all pontifications on climate ‘change’ are just piffle.
00
More climatic presumptions – not about coral
“Therapeutic Albanese claims all businesses & farmers have asked for net-zero emissions
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/08/therapeutic-albanese-claims-all-businesses-farmers-have-asked-for-net-zero-emissions.html
“What’s this “We”, Paleface”? comes to mind
30
Elbows claim requires a bit of fact checking, anyone think MSM will provide it… no, me either.
Just wait till they get the bill for this one, 43%, not 40 or 45 ????
The fact that the watermelons seem happy is a worry.
40
You think “before” rather than “after” might be a good idea?
20
Science is built on observations. The science is made better when either the number or period of time increases for those observations. The period of time of intense observations of the GBR is too short. It’s only been happening since about the 1970’s. Hence, there is no reliable context or perspective to compare to. The same is happening at the moment with the CSIRO and their expeditions to the Southern Ocean to observe “climate change”. They have just barely started these expeditions on a regular basis ( annually ), but already they claim to be observing signs of climate change. Its ridiculous, when CSIRO has made at least 50 expeditions – perhaps then, make some careful comments. The other problem is their claims cant really be challenged because they are the sole owners of the data.
70
“Climate Change causes record coral cover — What if we get too many reefs?”
The way this is going, we will be doing reef discovery trips from Byron Bay soon.
70
Looks like AIMS continues to call things as they see them. Great that they are a thorough honest research organisation aye?
112
I’ve been to an AIMS open day. They are in lock step with the “global warming will kill the reef” mantra.
90
And yet look at the headline.
13
Even the far left AGW stall-warts sometimes are force to tell the truth.
40
and the next decline they will crow its climate change. Of course they will.
10
I noticed that a few days before this report came out the narrative changed to plastic contaminating the reef. Seems like a coordinated attempt to deflect attention. “Reef at record extent” -yes but PLASTIC!!!
60
I never see plastic on our beaches when I walk the dog. Why plastic would gravitate to the reef and not the beach is a mystery to me.
Guys! I’m not a curmudgeon, I believe up here in the North, most everything is fine. I just don’t have rose coloured glasses is all.
41
“— What if we get too many reefs?” Here’s my snarky reply: No problem. Another Crown of Thorns starfish plague is the answer. But if that doesn’t work there will be something else to keep us in a state of free floating angst. Think of the ‘science’ follows money grants, the virtuous humblebrag opportunities, the green politics bandwaggons. Coming to a Big Brother political theatre screen looking at you.
51
Someone needs to tell Plyberserk.
That Chicken Little needs to cancel Clive Palmer’s coal mine in Queensland because ….. the reef the reef!
Or is it just Clive that she wants to cancel?
Tony.
140
The total recovery of the Great Barrier reef teaches a few absolute lessons
It was never true. Science does not contradict facts. Facts contradict science.
The recovery was not man made. The damage was not man made.
We now know bleaching happens but the reef comes back to full health.
This is also known to be true for the Crown of Thorns starfish which is celebrated in Tahiti as a welcome event which improves the reef. Like pruning.
The bleaching was used as absolute proof of culpability, liability, poor management and UNESCO determined that the reef was in real trouble and Australia was the culprit.
We know this is true because Barack Obama said so.
However if the reef has returned to full health, there is no Climate Change damage, no industrial or farm runoff damage. And no proof at all that such alleged damage was not cyclical or natural
And in the long term of no consequence whatsoever. The reef is as good as it was decades ago, if not better.
This gigantic North South reef is 2500km long and up to 250 km wide and reefs in the Pacific can be kilometers deep.
This reef, comprised of many reefs stretches from the tropics to the temperate. And has been around in good times and bad
including a few ice ages.
Can we now stop fantasising about our alleged and clearly ridiculous duty of care?
And it would be nice if also we stopped fantasising about how we control CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
That is scientifically impossible.
Now Malcolm and Lucy, would you please return the money? $444 Million to ‘save’ what does not need saving?
100
The climate capers aside, or maybe fully involved, people seem to be oblivious to the fact that natural processes fluctuate, they are full of variation and change. ‘Normal’ is a huge range, not just a point. Climate has been swinging all over the place for centuries. We know this. Animal populations and plant communities change over time. Nature is in flux, not static. Now, stop panicking.
60
The reef will outlast humanity by a long margin.
20
Meanwhile as the Reef heals itself
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION CALLS FOR CENSORSHIP ON ENERGY
This is shocking, or would be in a sane world: Gina McCarthy, the Biden administration’s National Climate Advisor, is openly calling on tech companies like Facebook and Twitter to censor any dissent from the administration’s “green” fantasies. McCarthy says the tech companies “have to stop allowing” people to disagree with Biden. No doubt the people she wants to censor include Steve Hayward and me, among many others:
110
Born in Brighton, Boston,on May 3, 1954, McCarthy was raised in Canton, and Dorchester, Massachusetts.
She has Irish ancestry, and grew up in a working-class family.
She graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Anthropology.
She later attended Tufts University, where she received a Master of Science combining Environmental Health Engineering with Planning and Policy in 1981.
Clearly an expert on meteorology. Or as much as Dr. Tim Flannery. Handing science degrees to people who cannot add and multiply is utterly wrong.
70
But they excel at division.
70
Goes with this
“A Literature Degree To Rule Them All”
“No one in the COVID Recovery unit, including Jennifer Little, the director-general, had any formal education in epidemiology, medicine or public health.
Little, who has an undergraduate degree in literature from the University of Toronto, testified that there were 20 people in the unit. ”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/08/02/a-literature-degree-to-rule-them-all/
[Going oiff topic here… – Jo]
20
Are we seeing the start of a gradual ‘walkback’ of climate related furphies, hopefully, more to come.
30
And for all those self appointed experts, here is a warning “Let us learn to be wary of arguments from authority”.
Famous Physicist Dr Etienne Klein has apologized for his photograph of the star Proxima Centauri. Apparenly it was a photograph of a piece of Chorizo sausage.
You would think the ‘scientists’ at James Cook University could apologize for their photographs of a dying reef. Instead they had the whistle blower fired with full support of the million dollar a year Vice Chancellor and the board. It seems there is a big difference between a joke and making hundreds of millions of dollars from something which is not true.
70
Every year in the Northern Hemisphere, the leaves fall from the trees, the skies darken, the earth grows cold and the animals hide. Climate Change. So at the mid Winter festival, people would get together in hope that the sun would return and the plants and leaves and life itself. We now call it Christmas.
But now Christmas is Climate Change. And this year it will be a cold Christmas in Germany without Russian gas. What happened to catastropic rapid Global Warming. Surely they should just be grateful for the 1.5C since 1860? After all we have erected hundreds of thousands of giant windmills in honour of the Gods of Climate Change.
And the Gods have returned the Great Barrier Reef, hale and hearty. It cannot possibly be natural. Like the Fall, it has to be someone’s fault. The Druids of Climate Change say so and forsooth they dress in Green but beware, they are false prophets. And it’s all about the profit.
80
Now imagine if this happened after a huge reduction in co2 emissions. Nothing more dangerous than the false correlation.
40
True but consider a huge reduction in CO2 ’emissions’ is a dangerous measure, simply because that is not the alleged problem. So a drop in ’emissions’ cannot save anything, if their fantasy science was true and CO2 produced warming which somehow (not explained) produced ocean warming and this produced bleaching. (clearly irrespective of air or water temperature because they vary so much from one end of the reef to the other). So instantaneous Nett zero achieves nothing, zero, zilch, even in the logic of the Greens.
The alleged problem is total CO2. And if human ’emissions’ were zero, CO2 is still controlled by the planet.
60
Out of interest, do they have a lower limit of Co2 which would make the world too cold ? I’m aware of the plant limit for co2 but do greens have a limit in mind ?
Could we theoretically return to earth at a time when co2 has been so sequestered that green policy is to burn as much coal as possible to heat the world up ?
30
What does cold matter? We still have the tropics. But if CO2 fell to zero or even 0.02%, all life on earth would be extinguished quickly. Even humans would strangle, lacking the CO2 levels to trigger breathing. CO2 is so important to life, the gas from which all life on earth is made, that classing it as a toxic industrial byproduct is beyond science. It’s utter lunacy.
10
Yes it’s 180 ppm that plants no longer function to my general knowledge. And this is planet of the plants. But back to the original point. It is, or is it an extraordinary stroke of luck that the earth is warming slightly just at the time when they come up with this theory of co2 ? A false correlation is feeding the whole idea.
00
It was a theory by James Hansen of NASA as an expert on the climate of Venus. That makes it hard to get a job but he found an enthusiastic supporter in Al Gore who has made it his life’s work.
The real driver was the World Meteorological Society who wanted to join the UN. But why would an organization to prevent war have an interest in the climate? So in 1988 this wacky theory was needed for all the world’s nations to join together and prevent a climate Catastrophe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was born on the basis of this one theory and immediately found that it was correct and that all the nations of the world should wage war on Carbon Dioxide, an enemy greater than all the weapons of the planet.
And on 28 June 1988, mid summer Al Gore and James Hansen climbed up into the roof of the Congress to open all the windows to defeat the air conditioning and so make a passionate case for rapid Man made Global Warming.
Except it’s not true.
But think of the tens of trillions of dollars. Even Al Gore is now a billionaire with many houses private aircraft. James Hansen has had the career he really wanted without having to worry about Venus. And the communist Greens could claim moral superiority over the greatest existential threat to humanity in history.
Coincidence. No. Just opportunity, if you have no scruples at all. That’s the Inconvenient Truth.
10
The more doom they can predict the more research grants they get.
50
I had a look at the report and read that in a 200m tow, the diver has to record 7 parameters:
1. Percentage hard coral cover
2. Percentage soft coral cover
3. Percentage hard coral bleached
4. Number and size of crown-of-thorns starfish
5. Number of coral trout and sharks
And from the images, the diver has no obvious device to make any records on the spot.
How does the diver record this information?
Do we know if the diver emerges from the water after each 200m tow and correctly transmit the data to the scientist in the boat?
Is there a recording device with the diver?
People can be trained to memorize effectively, but I’d really be interested in the error bars around these observations.
Also, these percentages would be estimates or guesses. Do we know how precise these estimates are?
70
“Climate Change Schizophrenia: Australian Payoffs to Coal, and a 47% 2030 Emissions Cut”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/04/climate-schizophrenia-aussie-payoffs-to-coal-and-a-47-2030-emissions-cut/
Sounds like another “to find out what’s in it you’ll have to vote for it”
30
Some observations, some pedantry for future correctness.
The ray is a Manta Ray, not a Mantra Ray.
Dr Bill Johnston has calculated that temperatures along the Great Barrier Reef in a scientific survey in 1871 are quite similar to the temperatures that AIMS measures now. That is, there might not have been any detected warming of the waters over the last 140 years.
See his blog at Bomwatch.org
This month, August 2022, marks 10 ears of no global warming over Australia as indicated by the well-known satellite data from UAH, University of Alabama at Huntsville, working with bodies like NASA. Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/uahaug2022.jpg
80
Geoff, you are right about the name of the fish, but consider:
“a mantra is a sacred utterance… believed by practitioners to have religious, magical or spiritual powers” (Wikipedia)
Thus I picture a “mantra tow” as being a greenie fanatic being towed along over the reef while chanting ” — climate change — carbon pollution — global warming — “
40
Well if it was me charged with tackling the COT “problem”, I’d train dolphins in the task.
Being such intelligent creatures they could be trained to target COTs with a custom designed fixed-dose syringe vinegar set-up.
A back mounted reservoir and a quick jab…
They could do it all day long and cover a sizeable territory. Distributed tank replenishment points to maximise efficiency.
A free feed of fish at the end of the day and they’re happy. Sounds good to me…
20
Now about that $400 odd million that Malcolm Turnbull sent to some inauspicious GBR Research Group.
Certainly seems to have worked. Maybe they could return the unspent money now that everything is OK.
20
‘more acidic water’
These liars can’t help themselves can they. The water is not acidic in the first place and can’t get more acidic.
40
It’s a word game. Decreasing pH is heading in the direction of acid, which is called therefore ‘acidification‘ as in ‘ocean acidification’. To make the ocean acidic would require the dissolution of all shells, limestone around the world, like the white cliffs of Dover. All the reefs. In fact the land under England and Paris and Odessa and more. So it’s all a game of words.
70
[…] such as The Uninhabitable Earth, “and not from mainstream science research”. This last remark prompted the science writer Jo Nova to comment: “Essentially they are telling us we need to panic because there are no […]
00
[…] ruling party.) Clive Palmer’s mine got axed today, (the irony) because even though the Great Barrier Reef is healthier than AIMS has ever measured, his coal mine (and not all the ones in China) threatens the reef. […]
00
The reef recovery is extremely significant from a political perspective as largely neuters the politics of the”dying reef.
From a reef scientists point of view it is disastrous as it threatens their gravy train. I am sure 98% of reef scientists have just been proven wrong?
From a biological perspective it is even more interesting as the rapid recovery demonstrates the power of Mother Nature. In this respect it also challenges the assumption that “all bleaching /reef damage is bad. In fact it could be argued that regular removal of a percentage of reef biomass permits and encourages new growth which responds in the context of the modified (if that is the case) environment . After all isn’t that how nature works?
Perhaps Crown of thorns infestations , cyclones and bleaching events are intrinsic to a healthy sustainable reef
As in Climate Science we need to ‘reboot’ and start looking at these issues from a broader perspective.
10
[…] Climate Change causes record coral cover — What if we get too many reefs? […]
00
@Jo Nova
Has this been mentioned yet?
It’s from Roger Pielke Jnr’s blog
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/fish-and-foul
00