• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Coral Reef recovering rapidly

Threegoofs said:
Ok. Since you don’t know, I’m going to go with the people who DO know- which is what I originally posted.
Click to expand...



Threegoofs said:
Less heat stress means lower temperatures, unless it means something else in your world.
Click to expand...

Well, no, you have assumed it means less heat. Your own quoted source can't differentiate the change between "a few acute stresses" and "less accumulated heat", nor does your quote quantify the number.

Here are all of the anomaly maps for December-February, the warmest months for the GBR:


So we have one SH Summer where the temperatures were cooler than average, 2018-2019, and then the warmer than average returned. That period after the 1 year respite, while the region was warmer than average, was when the recovery happened.

In fact, that summer of cooler than average temperatures resulted in a loss of coral that year.

So again this is an issue where the hand waved "a few other acute stresses" is the hidden lead in the GBR recovery story.
 
jmotivator said:
Well, no, you have assumed it means less heat. Your own quoted source can't differentiate the change between "a few acute stresses" and "less accumulated heat", nor does your quote quantify the number.

Here are all of the anomaly maps for December-February, the warmest months for the GBR:


So we have one SH Summer where the temperatures were cooler than average, 2018-2019, and then the warmer than average returned. That period after the 1 year respite, while the region was warmer than average, was when the recovery happened.

In fact, that summer of cooler than average temperatures resulted in a loss of coral that year.

So again this is an issue where the hand waved "a few other acute stresses" is the hidden lead in the GBR recovery story.
Click to expand...
Thanks for confirming you dont know.

Again, as posted, the combination of less heat and no typhoons along with less starfish (who like warmer water) is why we have some recovery.

And why its likely just a blip.
 
Threegoofs said:
Don’t get analogies, do ya?

Figures, though.
Click to expand...
It was really a simple question,
Can you show and link to a similar graph for the area of the Great Barrier Reef?
Showing a graph of sea ice coverage, is not relevant, or a good analogy to the condition of a reef in tropical waters.
 
longview said:
It was really a simple question,
Can you show and link to a similar graph for the area of the Great Barrier Reef?
Showing a graph of sea ice coverage, is not relevant, or a good analogy to the condition of a reef in tropical waters.
Click to expand...
LOL.

you’re real sharp.
 
MamboDervish said:
That is excellent news! It's just another great example of how when we stop poisoning and destroying our environment, it often has the ability to recover in time.
Click to expand...
While it is indeed good news, it is not because of anything humans have done or didn't do. We are still killing coral with our pollution. That has not changed.
 
longview said:
If I remember correctly Dr Peter Ridd was fired from James Cook University because he questioned
if the bleaching was because of water temperature, or because an El Nino event had exposed large sections of the
reef to air.
Click to expand...
Both would result in coral bleaching. As well as the toxic run-off that we contribute after every storm.
 
MamboDervish said:
In either case, the cause would be anthropogenic.

oceanservice.noaa.gov

Corals Tutorial: Human Threats to Corals: Corals Tutorial

Human-caused, or anthropogenic activities, are major threats to coral reefs. Pollution, overfishing, destructive fishing practices using dynamite or cyanide, collecting live corals for the aquarium market and mining coral for building materials are some of the many ways that people damage...
oceanservice.noaa.gov oceanservice.noaa.gov

www.sciencedaily.com

Climate warming promises more frequent extreme El Niño events

New research, based on 33 historical El Niño events from 1901 to 2017, show climate change effects have shifted the El Niño onset location from the eastern Pacific to the western Pacific and caused more frequent extreme El Niño events since the 1970's. Continued warming over the western Pacific...
www.sciencedaily.com
Click to expand...
Not entirely. While humans have certainly contributed with our pollution, the majority of the coral bleaching is a result of either extreme temperature changes of the water (too hot or too cold for the algae), or by being exposed to the air during extreme low tides.
 
Glitch said:
Both would result in coral bleaching. As well as the toxic run-off that we contribute after every storm.
Click to expand...
Agreed, Ridd speculated that because the areas with the most bleaching were the shallow coral,
that some of the bleaching may have been related to a loss of sea level during the El-Nino event,
that moved water away from the reef, and towards the central Pacific.
Air exposure would be very bad for Coral.
 
longview said:
Agreed, Ridd speculated that because the areas with the most bleaching were the shallow coral,
that some of the bleaching may have been related to a loss of sea level during the El-Nino event,
that moved water away from the reef, and towards the central Pacific.
Air exposure would be very bad for Coral.
Click to expand...
That does not make sense. During El Nino events sea temperatures increase, which would result in increasing tides due to the thermal expansion of the water, particularly around the equator, not a reduction in the tides. During La Nina events when sea temperatures decrease, then it makes more sense for tides to be lower and possibly expose the coral.

During both El Nino and La Nina events the temperature of the water can change enough - either way - to kill the algae in the polyps and cause bleaching.
 
Glitch said:
That does not make sense. During El Nino events sea temperatures increase, which would result in increasing tides due to the thermal expansion of the water, particularly around the equator, not a reduction in the tides. During La Nina events when sea temperatures decrease, then it makes more sense for tides to be lower and possibly expose the coral.

During both El Nino and La Nina events the temperature of the water can change enough - either way - to kill the algae in the polyps and cause bleaching.
Click to expand...
The El Nino is a bulge of water in the central Pacific, collecting the water there supposedly lowers it elsewhere.
 
longview said:
The El Nino is a bulge of water in the central Pacific, collecting the water there supposedly lowers it elsewhere.
Click to expand...
It is a bulge of water caused by heat and a planet that is rotating at ~1,000 mph. It does not lower the tides anywhere, but rather increases the tides everywhere due to thermal expansion. During La Nina events, when sea temperatures drop, then the tides will decrease accordingly.
 
Threegoofs said:
Thanks for confirming you dont know.

Again, as posted, the combination of less heat and no typhoons along with less starfish (who like warmer water) is why we have some recovery.

And why its likely just a blip.
Click to expand...

The records shows that there is significant warming in the northern and central Great Barrier reef zones, and the southern zone is generally the coolest of the three zones, which stands to reason since the Southern zone is roughly 2000 km closer to the pole... or roughly the distance between Nags Head NC and Smooth Rock Falls, Ontario.

The problem with your argument above is that the zone you want to claim is cooling is, per the AIMS study, also the zone with an ongoing COTS infestation... so are you wrong about what COTS like, or the cooling? :unsure:

(Hint: COTS infestations are tied to algae blooms from farm fertilizer run off, which has the greatest impact on the middle and northern zones, and is also tied to La Nina events for reasons that, until yesterday, you were unaware)

So you swing and miss again.
 
Glitch said:
It is a bulge of water caused by heat and a planet that is rotating at ~1,000 mph. It does not lower the tides anywhere, but rather increases the tides everywhere due to thermal expansion. During La Nina events, when sea temperatures drop, then the tides will decrease accordingly.
Click to expand...
The Bulge, from what I have read is a strip in the central Pacific.
NASA El Niño
In a normal year the trade winds blow westward and push warm surface water near Australia and New Guinea.
Click to expand...
During an El Niño event the trade winds weaken. Warm, nutrient-poor water is not pushed westward and comes to occupy the entire tropical Pacific Ocean.
Click to expand...
Ocean surface height may rise as much as 6 to 13 inches above normal in some ocean regions during an El Niño.
Click to expand...
Think of it like this, in normal conditions there is a LONG fetch piling water up in the Western Pacific.
When the Winds lay down during an El Nino event, the wind blown tide is no longer pushed against Australia,
so they tides are lower, both high and low tide.
 
jmotivator said:
(Hint: COTS infestations are tied to algae blooms from farm fertilizer run off, which has the greatest impact on the middle and northern zones, and is also tied to La Nina events for reasons that, until yesterday, you were unaware)
Click to expand...
The toxic runoff in California is so bad that you cannot swim in the ocean within 72 hours after any storm, or you risk serious chemical burns. You have to go several miles out to sea before you find any fish. They are so concerned about the air that they have completely ignored the ocean. The east coast is no different. New York and New Jersey have been using the Atlantic as their landfill for multiple decades.
 
Glitch said:
That does not make sense. During El Nino events sea temperatures increase, which would result in increasing tides due to the thermal expansion of the water, particularly around the equator, not a reduction in the tides. During La Nina events when sea temperatures decrease, then it makes more sense for tides to be lower and possibly expose the coral.

During both El Nino and La Nina events the temperature of the water can change enough - either way - to kill the algae in the polyps and cause bleaching.
Click to expand...

That is generally a false statement when talking about regional water temperatures.

El Nino events occur when winds blow warmer surface water in the Pacific eastward, the vacating water results in an upwelling of cold deep ocean water in the western Pacific. The End result is that the Eastern Pacific gets warmer as a regional average while the regional average for the western Pacific is colder.

La Nina is exactly the opposite, where winds blowing west push the warm water to the western Pacific, causing an upwelling of cold water off the coast of South America, cooling the average regional temperature of the Eastern Pacific.

The overall impact on the global SST is mostly driven by how cold the upwelling water actually is.

Either way, the predominant effect of El Nino and La Nina is in the Eastern and Western Pacific, though the events have global effects that follow from those changes in regional Pacific temperatures... like La Nina warming off the coast of Australia leading to heavy rains in Australia.
 
longview said:
The Bulge, from what I have read is a strip in the central Pacific.
NASA El Niño



Think of it like this, in normal conditions there is a LONG fetch piling water up in the Western Pacific.
When the Winds lay down during an El Nino event, the wind blown tide is no longer pushed against Australia,
so they tides are lower, both high and low tide.
Click to expand...
Warmer water temperatures do have fewer nutrients than colder water temperatures. That doesn't change physics however. Warmer water expands, colder water contracts. On a spinning sphere water is always going to move away from the poles and towards the equator (Coriolis force). The more water you have, the more will amass around the equator. This is why there is a bulge of water on the surface of the Pacific around the equator during El Nino events. Thermal expansion will cause the water to increase in volume, and therefore occupy more space by increasing the tides. While La Nina events result in exactly the opposite effect.
 
Last edited:
Glitch said:
The toxic runoff in California is so bad that you cannot swim in the ocean within 72 hours after any storm, or you risk serious chemical burns. You have to go several miles out to sea before you find any fish. They are so concerned about the air that they have completely ignored the ocean. The east coast is no different. New York and New Jersey have been using the Atlantic as their landfill for multiple decades.
Click to expand...

It's bad everywhere. There is a halo of trash floating off the coast of Brazil where the tides carry copious amounts of trash off of Brazilian beaches before the tide sublimates to the incoming waves. My brother used to work as an engineer on a research ship in that area and would send me pictures. Gross.
 
Glitch said:
Warmer water temperatures do have fewer nutrients than colder water temperatures. That doesn't change physics however. Warmer water expands, colder water contracts. On a spinning sphere water is always going to move away from the poles and towards the equator (Coriolis force). The more water you have, the more will amass around the equator. This is why there is a bulge of water on the surface of the Pacific around the equator during El Nino events. Thermal expansion will cause the water to increase in volume, and therefore occupy more space by increasing the tides. While La Nina events result in exactly the opposite effect.
Click to expand...
The temperature expansion would not cause the change in levels reported.
I found this PSMSL for Cairns, note the large drop in the annual sea level around 2015-2016, when a major El Nino was happening.
You have to go to the data, but the 2014 annual sea level dropped by 63 mm in 2015.
1660074840577.webp
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom