The Reef Ain't Dead

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

Global warming skeptics occur because of the deliberate misinformation, propaganda, and outright lying.

You want to have your theory taken seriously? Then stop lying.

If global warming was really solely the result of man's actions then it should be easily proven.

Why hide the data?

Why "adjust" the data to make it fit the theory?

Why is it asking the thermal mass of the polar ice caps gets me immediately blocked from global warming discussion groups?

Who's lying?

You've just reeled off a bunch of stuff put out by organizations, lobbyists and groups who have a vested and obvious interest in sowing "skepticism" and opposition to the idea that we have created, and continue to add to a climate problem.

You may well be genuinely skeptical, but that's mainly because those above groups have done such a good job.

I totally agree that "climate change" isn't to blame for every environmental threat, but they're also mostly man-made problems, and the solutions for climate change, air and water pollution, agricultural runoff etc are all overlapping: reduce use of fossil fuels, reduce or eliminate single-use plastics. conserve more, make our processes more efficient and sustainable.

The industries, lobbies and organizations threatened by climate change action are also threatened by the solutions to those other environmental issues.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

Global warming skeptics occur because of the deliberate misinformation, propaganda, and outright lying.

You want to have your theory taken seriously? Then stop lying.

If global warming was really solely the result of man's actions then it should be easily proven.

Why hide the data?

Why "adjust" the data to make it fit the theory?

Why is it asking the thermal mass of the polar ice caps gets me immediately blocked from global warming discussion groups?

1) Natural cycles (Milankovitch and solar) would have us cooling. Human activity is the only explanation.

In science correlation + mechanism = evidence of a causal relationship.

BEST has established a 250 correlation between CO2 and temperature.
Summary of Findings - Berkeley Earth

The mechanism of CO2 as a GHG has been known for 2 centuries.
https://history.aip.org/history/clim...x.htm#contents

Ergo ...


2) No one is hiding data. For example, Michael Mann's data is available on his web site.
Michael E. Mann

The data from the 692 data sets from Pages2K are available at:
PAGES - Past Global Changes - Data


3) Judith Curry has a three part series on her blog explaining data adjustments.
https://judithcurry.com/2014/07/07/u...perature-data/
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/09/b...perature-data/
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/22/u...ervation-bias/

[GordMay]

Coral Triage: Scientists Zero in on Reefs With Best Chance of Survival
Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s 100 Island Challenge uses 3-D photography to monitor how coral reefs change over time, in an effort to help local communities save crucial marine ecosystems.
In order to understand what coral reef systems look like, and how they function, in the absence of human disturbance, the Smith lab and several collaborators have been conducting research in the highly remote Central Pacific. This research has revealed that in the absence of local human disturbance, coral reefs may be resilient to climate-associated impacts*. This research is ongoing and involves detailed experiments, observations, taxonomic catalogues and sample collection, and statistical analysis.
➥ https://sioweb.ucsd.edu/labs/coralreefecology/research/

This conviction* is behind a new project dubbed the 100 Island Challenge, an experiment using cutting-edge imaging technology to survey coral reefs in two and three dimensions.
“Our group is in the minority in that we do have hope that not all reefs are going to be dead in 10 to 20 years,” said Jennifer Smith, coprincipal investigator for the 100 Island Challenge and a professor at Scripps.
She pointed to coral species that have adapted to survive a rise in ocean temperature. “We’ve seen in the last few years places that were suffering massive bleaching but then also showed pretty rapid recovery in some of the places that don’t have a human population,” Smith said. “So there’s this idea that if you can manage your reef locally by having good water quality and healthy fisheries, it’s more likely to recover from bleaching more quickly that a reef experiencing runoff, sewage, overfishing and other threats.”


The 100 Island Challenge is a collaborative effort based at Scripps Institution of Oceanography to describe the variation of coral reefs from across the globe.
➥ https://100islandchallenge.org/

The project is similar to the 50 Reefs initiative, which aims to identify the fifty coral reefs that, together, have the potential of surviving the impacts of climate change and the ability to help repopulate neighboring reefs over time.
➥ https://www.50reefs.org/

[RaymondR]

There have been a couple of interesting occurrences in the press about the Ridd case lately:

The first was an opinion piece by Dr Jennifer Marohasey which provides some information about the process Ridd objected to. Apparently the orthodox method of defining coral growth was using cores from a particular coral to define annual growth rates and from this reliable estimates of long term health could be inferred.

The problem arose when this method was abandoned in favour of one where there was only visual inspection of the condition of a reef and this was used as a proxy to infer the condition of all reefs (The Great Barrier Reef is composed of thousands of small reefs spread over about one thousand miles of the Queensland coast) Unfortunately the study was done in 2016 and 2017 on reef which had just suffered a bleaching event and was recovering from cyclone damage, that is following events which lead to short term damage of particular areas only, and these short term observations were then applied to the entire reef system hence "THE REEF IS DEAD" type headlines.

According to people who regularly visit the reefs in the area containing those studied for the report they are now almost fully recovered. Ridd's objections to the studies leading to the adverse headlines appear to be around the lack of objectivity and short termism of the "proxy" system of reef health assessment.

In August Ridd lodged an application for special leave with the High Court of Australia for a review of his dismissal case. The court chooses which cases it will hear and decides on those it warrants as needing it's attention. Hopefully it will decide that intellectual freedom in the tertiary education sector is one of these cases.

[Budawang]

Yes but the reefs around the Whitsundays are almost unrecognisable in many areas. I have nothing against soft corals but we need hard corals as well for a healthy ecosystem.

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

So you're agreeing with me that the coral is growing back? How'd the vegetation on the islands compare?

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by Budawang

Yes but the reefs around the Whitsundays are almost unrecognisable in many areas. I have nothing against soft corals but we need hard corals as well for a healthy ecosystem.

That's the result of direct hit by a severe cyclone. I suspect the effects from Cyclone Ada in 1970 would have been similar, and yet the reef became "recognisable" at some point thereafter. No reason to expect history not to repeat.


Daydream Island after Ada (1970)




Daydream Island After Debbie (2017)

[StuM]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

There have been a couple of interesting occurrences in the press about the Ridd case lately:
.

And then there's https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary...dc06/&sid=0006

Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020

prompted in part by the Ridd case.

"Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Minister for Education) (09:32): I move:
...
The Australian government is strongly committed to supporting academic freedom and freedom of speech in Australian universities. Our universities are critical institutions where ideas are debated and challenged. We must ensure they are places that protect all free speech, even where what is being said may be unpopular or challenging. That is why, in November 2018, following reports of concerning incidents on university campuses across Australia, I announced the independent review into freedom of speech, undertaken by Mr French."

In an interview, Mr Tehan later said:

“[James Cook University] wouldn’t have been able to prosecute Peter Ridd if these laws had of been in place.”

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

The first was an opinion piece by Dr Jennifer Marohasey which provides some information about the process Ridd objected to. Apparently the orthodox method of defining coral growth was using cores from a particular coral to define annual growth rates and from this reliable estimates of long term health could be inferred.

The problem arose when this method was abandoned in favour of one where there was only visual inspection of the condition of a reef and this was used as a proxy to infer the condition of all reefs (The Great Barrier Reef is composed of thousands of small reefs spread over about one thousand miles of the Queensland coast) Unfortunately the study was done in 2016 and 2017 on reef which had just suffered a bleaching event and was recovering from cyclone damage, that is following events which lead to short term damage of particular areas only, and these short term observations were then applied to the entire reef system hence "THE REEF IS DEAD" type headlines.

Although not relevant to the story of Ridd, I note that a coral reef in Nippon has been declared dead. No one talked about drilling cores, just bleached and dead.

Waters around the home islands of Nippon were quite warm this past summer and into early autumn. This particular reef is in Yamaguchi prefecture - more or less southwest from Hiroshima city.

Coral death was noted in September - October 2020.

See one media story: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles...0m/0na/020000c

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by fgd3

What a ridiculous statement. The ancient Greeks knew the earth was spherical and Eratosthenes (276 BC-195/194 BC) calculated it's dimensions pretty accurately.


There have been many ignorant and superstitous folks who thought the earth was flat but none of them could remotely be described as scientists.

Take the comment in context of how it was said. Scientists are not always right and their views change as more knowledge is gained. What we know as fact today may well be proved different in 50 years time!

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Although not relevant to the story of Ridd, I note that a coral reef in Nippon has been declared dead. No one talked about drilling cores, just bleached and dead.

Waters around the home islands of Nippon were quite warm this past summer and into early autumn. This particular reef is in Yamaguchi prefecture - more or less southwest from Hiroshima city.

Coral death was noted in September - October 2020.

See one media story: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles...0m/0na/020000c

According to the article:
"By late October, the spread of dying coral had abated, and larvae that had been spawned this season were found fixed to the bottom of the sea. Fujimoto, who plans to keep a close eye on the coral, said, "The massive die-off may have stopped, but it will take several years for the colony to return to the way it was."

Doesn't sound like it's "dead" to me.

And the other side of the coin. The same coral species is thriving elsewhere:
Alveopora japonica is Taking Advantage of Warming Subtropical Reefs

https://reefbuilders.com/2020/03/16/...ropical-reefs/

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

... I note that a coral reef in Nippon has been declared dead. No one talked about drilling cores, just bleached and dead...

As StuM noted, "Declared dead" is a gross misrepresentation of the linked article.
The article’s headline stated “dying off”, and the body said “beginning to die”; and went on to observe that: “By late October, the spread of dying coral had abated, and larvae that had been spawned this season were found fixed to the bottom of the sea. Fujimoto, who plans to keep a close eye on the coral, said, "The massive die-off may have stopped, but it will take several years for the colony to return to the way it was."

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Although not relevant to the story of Ridd,

* * *

Oh but it is relevant to the story of Ridd. Highly relevant. Regardless of whether his firing is ultimately determined to be legally justifiable by the courts, the efforts to silence, marginalize, and discredit him personally only serve to deprive the science of a potentially important and maybe even critical source of dissent. If, for example, he is in fact a crackpot in the pocket of the coal industry, then the most effective way to demonstrate this is to challenge his scientific opinions, not hurl derogatory labels or unproven accusations by people who are obviously more motivated by their own political & personal opinions than they are about the "science." It's possible that the science will ultimately disprove Ridd's opinions and vindicate such laymen, but the best way of getting there is to disprove outlier and dissenting scientific opinions, not by suppressing the debate with patently un-scientific name-calling and unfounded accusations of corruption.

For e.g., and maybe I missed it, but in all these pages this is the first I've read that using core samples to determine reef health had been abandoned in favor of visual observation. Why is it that those non-experts in these threads who so boldly declare themselves believers in "THE" science (thus rendering those who disagree or even question as ignorant "Deniers") aren't even curious why the established methodology for determining reef health was apparently abandoned? Could it be that the best place to find out is Dr. Ridd?? After all, I'm not seeing any of our self-anointed "experts" question Ridd's scientific credentials or expertise. Only that he pushed back against the prevailing views amongst his peers, was paid for his expert services evaluating environmental compliance for a coal depot, and worst of all . . . has been deemed a "Denier" by those who profess scientific knowledge but actually appear to understand the scientific method the least.

[AKA-None]

Reminds me of the princess bride. Mostly dead

[RaymondR]

I think Ridd is actually a physicist but was doing valuable climate science work in evaluating heat transfer from the earths surface to the upper atmosphere by tropical thunder storms for it's more effective radiation into space. Since this would be a compensating system for CC/AGM that also would not make him popular with the CC/AGM zealots.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

I think Ridd is actually a physicist but was doing valuable climate science work

That's understandable. Real "climate science" IS essentially physics.