The near vertiginous rise in the annual growth of coral at the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is continuing, with further major increases recorded across large areas. According to the 2021-22 annual summary from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), levels of coral cover in the northern and central areas of the reef were at their highest levels over the past 36 years of monitoring.
The growth is of course excellent news for environmentalists, but curiously, at the time of writing, the news is being downplayed in the mainstream media. The demise of the world’s coral reefs has long been a go-to poster scare story for Net Zero promoters. As late as October 2020, the BBC was telling stories about the Reef losing half of its coral. The Guardian was one of the first to set the coral doomsday ball rolling when George Monbiot told its readers in 1999 that the “imminent total destruction of the world’s coral reefs is not a scare story”. Noting the recent record growth, the newspaper added that “global heating could jeopardise recovery”.
This notion that global warming will cause corals to die is frankly a big whopping fib. Tropical coral, which is closely related to its cnidarian cousin the jellyfish, thrives in waters between 24°C and 32°C. It is highly adaptable but seems to dislike sudden changes in temperature, often caused by natural weather oscillations such as El Niño events. As the latest results from the AIMS show, coral quickly recovers when normal localised conditions return. In fact, coral often grows faster in warmer waters nearer the equator than the GBR. The big agitprop lie suggests minor long-term sea temperatures changes will wipe out the coral, but the scientific evidence suggests otherwise.
The sensational growth is clearly seen in the above graph for the northern reef. Recovery is said to have continued following a “period of cumulative disturbances” from 2014 to 2020. Only three of the 24 reefs surveyed in the last two years had decreased hard coral cover. The biggest disturbance, of course, arose around 2016 and was caused by a powerful, and natural, El Niño Pacific oscillation that quickly raised surrounding ocean temperatures by up to 3°C. Sudden warming spooks the coral and they expel symbiotic algae in a process commonly known as bleaching. As we can see, this is quickly reversed when sea temperatures stabilise. Corals have been around, in one form or another, for 500 million years. It is likely this natural process extends back that far to the birth of life as we know it on Earth.
In the central reef, the declines seen in 2012 and 2016 were due to natural events, namely Cyclone Yasi in 2012 and El Niño in 2016. The latter led to bleaching to around 2019, and matters were not helped by outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish attacks. Since then, the growth has been spectacular. Last year saw hard coral cover increase to 33%, said to be the highest for this region. Over the last two years, hard coral cover declined on only four individual reefs, and increased on most of the rest surveyed.
The southern part of the GBR has generally displayed the highest coral cover, but according to the AIMS it has been the most “dynamic” over the 36-year survey history. In recent years there has been good growth after the 2016 El Niño depredations, but there have been major attacks by starfish. AIMS notes that many southern reefs have high coral cover, but starfish continue to decimate some areas.
Overall, the GBR seems to be in excellent shape. The AIMS notes that in the northern and central regions, hard coral cover reached 36% and 33% respectively. Reefs consist of much more than hard coral and contain a diversity of other species along with sponges and algae. The AIMS defines 30-50% as a “high value”, based on historical surveys.
Nevertheless coral is still too valuable a weapon in the green agenda to be discarded lightly. Despite highlighting some stunning reverses of the recent natural coral declines, the AIMS seems to be sticking to the trendy apocalyptic story. “The predicted consequences of climate change, which include more frequent and intense mass coral bleaching events, are now a contemporary reality. Simultaneously, chronic stressors such as high turbidity, increasing ocean temperatures and changing ocean chemistry can all negatively affect recovery rates, while more frequent acute disturbances mean that the intervals for recovery are becoming shorter,” it concludes.
For what it’s worth, my own hunch is that the little critters will still be around in another 500 million years, maybe longer.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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And of course “proper disposal” means paying to ship it half way round the world for Elbonians to dump in a river while lying to our faces about it.
Please leave Elba out of this
Don’t know our Asia from our Elba?
I don’t think a website called ‘Daily Sceptic’ is the right place for your advert…
Report it as spam.
I thought for a minute they earnt that by picking up all the facemarks littering the streets.
But surely, if it saves just one life…!
That will account for the rise in sea levels then
I think people are missing the point here, you see all those tons of cotton will absorb masses of sea water and prevent the rise in sea levels caused by all you profligate wasters that insist on turning your heating on during the winter – for shame!
That should keep Greta and her acolytes busy, picking it up off the beaches and dragging it out of the various oceanic gyres.
Yeah no. They actually don’t give a fuck about the environment, just the need to consolidate corporate ownership of the Earth and its resources, under the banner of a made up emergency.
More people need to understand this.
It is well to remember that this figure results from a model, so the truth is likely to be significantly different.
I guess it excludes all the containers of masks scattered around Felixstowe.
Does this mean that the oceans are now toxic with Covid viri.
To exactly the same extent as the air around us is.
All joking aside isn’t this one of the most disgusting aspects of this whole charade? As well as poisoning minds and bodies, they have poisoned the environment as well with these pathetic plastic talismans worn by the credulous to appease their oppressors. Fucking diabolical.
Every nap wearer STILL sanctimoniously strutting around with their hideous slave symbols on, are lost. They’re gone. Too lazy or too stupid to see how utterly ridiculous they look, and absolutely clueless as to where their compliance is going to take them..and us. I know this sounds harsh but I’m sick of their beady little stares, and drama passes. I’m through with them.
For the first time in the whole plandemic I had to stop myself losing it with a smug, sanctimonious parent at my daughter’s primary school yesterday who was wearing one to collect his child even though he didn’t have to. Fucking outside. I was going to ask him, why he was wearing that thing on his face, and was he aware that he might be scaring the children with his mock surgical mask, and didn’t he think we should be showing the children normality at this stage. And did he realise how fucking ridiculous he looked with his virtue-signalling stupid rag on his chin, and did he think he was better or more virtuous or safer than anyone else, and did he actually think that a loose fitting bit of disposable plastic tat could stop a virus either leaving or entering him, and if he did would he like me to draw him a diagram of the relative sizes of virons and the pores in breathable fabric, and had he ever seen how they do infection control in hospitals or laboratories.
Thankfully the bell rang and they all came out. Embarrassing scenario averted.
I think we can all relate your comment.
Pity.
Absolutely.
The fucking things turn up everywhere – in streets, in parks, I’ve even seen them thrown in hedges well out in the countryside. It should be frowned on in the same way as not clearing up dog shit now is!
Add it to the list of hypocrisies of the holier than thou, I will tell you how to live your life class.
It’s a long, long list.
Don’t dump them in the sea. Gather your used disposable masks and post them to 10 Downing Street, SW1A 2AA
I’d pick up all the filthy things littering my town right now and post them off, but they literally make me feel sick!
Yep. Me too. Disgusting on so many levels.
At least they are not disposal diapers/nappies.
I remember reading, a while ago, about some very smart kid who invented genuinely brilliant way to clean the oceans. It was based on the fact that a lot of ocean waste gathers in certain places, due to currents, winds, etc. and stays there basically whirling forever-so the boy invented some sort of whirling nets, to collect the garbage (in the article it sounded really simple although smart, my description is a bit dumb, sorry about that). Guess what: no agency or government were interested in the invention…
This has been floating around on Social media fora while.
Pun intended.
I am surprised it this low. Taking all the figures with several large pinches of salt – this being the Mail On-line, it appears that in the 18 months since the epidemic began 8.4 mllion tons of plastic waste has been generated but only 25,000 tonnes (why the change of unit?) ended up in the oceans i.e 0.3%. I guess this was because most it is medical waste which tends to be disposed of properly.
It is estimated that between 8 and 14 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the oceans each year i.e.12 and 21 million tonnes over 18 months. So the Covid contribution is between 0.12% and 0.21% of the plastic waste entering the ocean during that period. It is definitely a bad thing – but we should hardly notice it amongst the other plastic waste in the ocean.
Yeah the difference is, all the other plastic waste had a purpose.
Tragic but at the same time vicariously good. It will remind the sheep when in the future they pretend they never believed or went along with any of this (assuming it ever ends or they survive jab XX).
Meanwhile at cock26, the giant migrant monster puppet is in attendance at a session that discusses “gender equality”. Of course our government have found an extra crazy sum of money on the magic tree to throw at women “impacted by climate change”.
It stuns me that the general public don’t see this bullshit for what it is.
I think they largely do, but their own sense of powerlessness prevents them from doing anything about it. If we want to take on this heist, we need to get organised. They are acting globally, so must we. Opposition is far too fragmented; there needs to be a worldwide movement calling out this fraud for what it is.
If these masks were really intended for protection from a deadly disease, you’d think there would be special disposal bins all over the place.
An awful situation. Human hubris abounds.
.
God help us all. Not another fecking computer model! We all know there are billions of these useless pieces of filthy clothcrap things clogging up just about fuxxing everything everywhere. No one seems to give a shite. I saw a bird tangled up in one near the M42 the other day on my way home. That bird almost certainly died a slow and agonizing death and there will be plenty more of those. Where are your plastic baggy tree huggers on this? Most of them are double-masked lying down in front of traffic on motorways I fear.