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posted by takyon on Wednesday April 25 2018, @02:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the going,-going,... dept.

Gazette Day reports:

In the year 2016, there was a heatwave that affected many parts of the world. The extreme temperatures were especially felt in and around the continent of Australia. As a result of the heatwave, the waters around the Great Barrier Reef warmed considerably. Scientists were worried that with the oceans already warming due to global climate change, the additional heat stress might cause considerable damage to the Great Barrier Reef.

After the heatwave subsided, a team of scientists conducted tests to find out how the heatwave damaged the reef. Extensive aerial surveys were conducted. These surveys concluded that a great deal of the reef had bleaching that had killed off many parts of the reef. [...] The surveys found that 90 percent of the corals in the reef suffered at least some type of bleaching. The worst damage was on the northernmost third of the reef. In this section, much of the damage was caused by the initial rise in temperature.

The other damage occurred later. The coral reefs depend on a symbiotic relationship with a certain type of algae. Over the course of a few months after the heating event, the algae separated from the reef causing additional reef death.

During the heating event in 2016, one-third of the coral reefs in the world were bleached and damaged in some way. The reefs do have the ability to come back from this [heat-induced damage] as long as the damaging events are not too frequent.

Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0041-2) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @09:46PM (#671886)

    Le sigh, the denial aspect comes from having a bias towards a certain position and going through ridiculous leaps of logic to deny anything that contradicts your assumption. Heat wave hits in 2016, no other obvious cause for coral die off, coral biology well understood to be sensitive to environmental conditions such as heat and CO2 concentrations.

    More brazen confidence in your ability to deflect and deny. Nowadays anyone who displays the same type of confident bullshitting I label as an educated idiot best ignored. Often such people have a core foundation of very basic and often flawed concepts, and they build from there.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 25 2018, @11:28PM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday April 25 2018, @11:28PM (#671936) Homepage Journal

    My bias about temperature affecting coral does not lean the way you think. I in fact very strongly suspect it does. That is irrelevant to whether a claim has been supported or not though.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.