Coral reefs in the Pacific

[boatman61]

It's not a new thing... even in ancient times coral growth was restricted by outlets of fresh water from rivers and streams, in fact any source of unsalted liquid that diluted the salinity of the nearby sea water.
Funny how today one needs 'studies' to confirm common sense.. if its not learnt in Uni it can't be true..

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by boatman61

It's not a new thing... even in ancient times coral growth was restricted by outlets of fresh water from rivers and streams, in fact any source of unsalted liquid that diluted the salinity of the nearby sea water.

Funny how today one needs 'studies' to confirm common sense.. if its not learnt in Uni it can't be true..

Except the article talks specifically about waste water not exactly pristine glacial river water

I suspect maybe bio load is the issue?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

Except the article talks specifically about waste water not exactly pristine glacial river water

I suspect maybe bio load is the issue?

Don't know any 'civilized' country with pristine rivers, they're all polluted with something by the time they reach the ocean.
Antigua still had coral in the mid 60's before tourism took off, I remember being anchored off St John's when all they had was a wooden jetty with a shelter on the end and watching schools of barracuda swim by attracted by the gangway lights.
Unmanaged waste water increased and there they were.. Gone.
But really.. 20 years to conclude that.???

[Ryban]

This thread is an example of why we can't have nice things.

The original poster asked for a status of the Coral Reefs in the Pacific, which is best and most sensibly answered with scientific data and observations, which some have kindly provided. Meanwhile others, those who continually show up at these threads to berate and poo-poo any science that may have a thread of a connection to climate change, come to derail the thread bring their politics into it.

I think it was posted above, but in case it was missed, this is a good report from 2020 about the status of Coral Reefs in the Pacific: https://gcrmn.net/wp-content/uploads...ld_2020_V1.pdf

If you don't want to take the time to look at the data, I don't think you should take the time to comment here either.

[Montanan]

Sometimes a photo is worth a thousand words.

Reference images:

Search terms: coral reefs photos pacific 20 years ago to present


https://www.bing.com/images/search?q...IQFRML&first=1


Opining here - It is not atypical for me to find degradation of coral reefs when I have returned to a tropical location, very rarely do I find improvement.

The condition, color and diversity of flora and fauna are not the same as they once were.

Not dissimilar to the continued receding of the many glaciers, from which I just returned from hiking in Glacier National Park, Montana.