Scientists Alarmed by Death of Coral By MICHELLE INNIS Researchers believe that bleaching, which they attribute to heat stress compounded by climate change, is threatening more than a third of the planet’s reefs. YDNEY, Australia — Kim Cobb, a marine scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, expected the coral to be damaged when she plunged into the deep blue waters off Kiritimati Island, a remote atoll near the center of the Pacific Ocean. Still, she was stunned by what she saw as she descended some 30 feet to the rim of a coral outcropping. “The entire reef is covered with a red-brown fuzz,” Dr. Cobb said when she returned to the surface after her recent dive. “It is otherworldly. It is algae that has grown over dead coral. It was devastating.” The damage off Kiritimati is part of a mass bleaching of coral reefs around the world, only the third on record and possibly the worst ever. Scientists believe that heat stress from multiple weather events including the latest severe El Niño, compounded by climate change, has threatened more than a third of Earth’s coral reefs. Many may not recover. Coral reefs are the crucial incubators of the ocean’s ecosystem, providing food and shelter to a quarter of all marine species, and they support fish stocks that feed more than one billion people. They are made up of millions of tiny animals, called polyps, that form symbiotic relationships with algae, which in turn capture sunlight and carbon dioxide to make sugars that feed the polyps. An estimated 30 million small-scale fishermen and women depend on reefs for their livelihoods, more than one million in the Philippines alone. In Indonesia, fish supported by the reefs provide the primary source of protein. “This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it,” said Justin Marshall, the director of CoralWatch at Australia’s University of Queensland. Bleaching occurs when high heat and bright sunshine cause the metabolism of the algae — which give coral reefs their brilliant colors and energy — to speed out of control, and they start creating toxins. The polyps recoil. If temperatures drop, the corals can recover, but denuded ones remain vulnerable to disease. When heat stress continues, they starve to death. Continue reading the main story
Fraudcurrents... please stop confusing models (which have failed on real time data) with settled real science. from your link... "This assessment comes about as the result of climate modeling experiments which show that it is the non-condensing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons that provide the necessary atmospheric temperature structure that ultimately determines the sustainable range for atmospheric water vapor and cloud amounts, and thus controls their radiative contribution to the terrestrial greenhouse effect. From this it follows that these non-condensing greenhouse gases provide the temperature environment that is necessary for water vapor and cloud feedback effects to operate, without which the water vapor dominated greenhouse effect would inevitably collapse and plunge the global climate into an icebound Earth state."
Pretty odd statement considering its seems cooling causes drought... I guess you hope man made co2 is not causing cooling.... gulp... oops.
That is funny but what is coming isn't funny. The Warmists have become a dangerous cult. I predict that when they don't get their way they will resort to terrorism against infrastructure and individuals. They are already engaged in judicial terrorism. It is starting to become clear that the various green industries are failing (solar and unconventional generation schemes) or are being recognized as an environmental disaster (wind and nuclear). Natural gas is so cheap and abundant in North American that it is irrational to not utilize it. Various technologies exist to render power generation by natural gas relatively clean and it is a crime against humanity to attempt to force inefficient power onto consumers. Even in the face of vast amounts of data the Warmists will not relent making it more-or-less obvious that the Global Warming Scam is based upon belief and ideology and not anything resembling science. It is the armies of uneducated, gullible and self-loathing liberal extremists like futurecurrents who are the biggest threat to the United States right now. If it weren't for my mobility I would actually be concerned but I can simply flee areas where liberofascists destroy their own economy. There is always somewhere to go that isn't in self-destruct mode. If you keep your life simple, don't acquire too many needless possessions and keep your bank balance banging you can sort of stay ahead of things. I've become a big believer in mobility, tax avoidance and general disregard for anything stupid the government attempts to foist upon me. My requirements have become very simple and can be met in many different places. If a place is beautiful, has decent food, has no state income tax and has somewhere I can buy ethanol-free fuel I'm perfectly happy there and these days a post-box in a UPS store is sufficient to establish residency anywhere you like. My current location has no state-income tax on one side of the river and no sales tax on the other side. Seven years of Barrack Obama has made me take steps lol.
You mean the warmists like these guys? Like virtually all of science? You are incredibly ignorant and delusional. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
Its 30,0000 skeptical scientists vs 95 who state man (not necesarily c02) is causing warming. That a reverse of your b.s. statement about the consensus. Since 1998, more than 31,000 American scientists from diverse climate-related disciplines, including more than 9,000 with Ph.D.s, have signed a public petition announcing their belief that “…there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” Included are atmospheric physicists, botanists, geologists, oceanographers, and meteorologists. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybe...ic-global-warming-consensus-not/#79e4f37d1690 And fraudcurrents pretends his survey of 10000 in which only 95 out o 99 scientists stated man (not necesarily co2 ) is causing warming is a consensus.
Fraud, this is an example of why I have been telling you that your worry is unnecessary and a complete waste of time. You can drop your religion. There are 100s if not 1000s of companies working on alternative energy. I think there is a good possibility that we are within 20 years of an alternative energy source that is as efficient as fossil fuels. However, if you can't spend your time disseminating gloom and doom, what will you do? Perhaps you can find another religion to worship. The below turbine runs on CO2. See, CO2 is a good gas. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ce-energy-power-small-town.html#ixzz45e70HwFn Tiny turbine that fits on your DESK runs on carbon dioxide - and it can produce enough energy to power a small town Turbine runs on carbon dioxide under high pressure and heated to 700˚C This supercritical liquid state allows for super-efficient energy production Prototype will produce enough power for around 10,000 homes But it could be scaled up to power a city, and could help energy firms repurpose waste gas and heat for efficient and clean energy production Under these conditions, the carbon dioxide enters a physical state between a gas and a liquid, enabling the turbine to harness its energy for super-efficient power generation - with the turbines transferring 50 per cent of the heat into electricity. It could help energy firms take waste gas and repurpose it for efficient and cleaner energy production. Waste heat produced from other power generation methods, such as solar or nuclear, could be used to melt salts, with the molten salts used to the carbon dioxide gas to a super-critical liquid - which may be much quicker than heating water for steam. GE confirmed the power cycle is a closed loop which circulates the CO2 continuously around the cycle, and that there are no waste products from the system when used with solar energy.