Coral bleaching probabilities
So…this is not good.
It took me a minute to figure out the scale of it, thinking this could be just a small patch and we can’t tell…but then I spotted Florida. Tiny tiny Florida. The scale is enormous.
Tip Jar
So…this is not good.
It took me a minute to figure out the scale of it, thinking this could be just a small patch and we can’t tell…but then I spotted Florida. Tiny tiny Florida. The scale is enormous.
The likely cause of this imho is global warming (AGW.) On the brighter side, corals are very long established organisms in the Biosphere, have survived many massive climate changes over geological time, and are frequently releasing their zygotes by the billions into the oceans. So the human inhabitants in future crowding into the new tropics of Iceland, Greenland and Patagonia should at least be able to relax at some yet-to-be-built tropical town or resort, and/or go snorkeling on a nearby coral reef or two. Hundred.
Everyone seems to think the poles will be the tropics in the future. Unless we change the tilt of the earth, they will not. They will be warmer, but the days will not be longer. They will not receive more sunshine, but they will reflect back less of the sunshine they receive.
I will confess I know less about animals than plants, and coral are animals, but I know that a number of plant species require more than just heat. They need a particular length of daylight to germinate. I suppose coral could be the same, but I’m not sure it matters, since they require an algae partner to survive, and algae, like plants, need sunlight.
As for AGW causing global warming? Probably so. One of the things we’ve discovered is that when the water gets too warm, the algae partner metabolizes faster…this is like Thanksgiving dinner for the coral. Too much food, too fast, they get sick and spit out their coral partner. Without the coral partner, they die.
iknklast: the poles won’t receive more radiation directly, as you say. But as far as I am aware, the atmosphere-hydrosphere-lithosphere-biosphere combination is the most complex system that we know about in the entire Universe. Increased energy in the world’s one ocean will likely result in increased water vapour in the atmosphere, resulting in increased cloud cover and more solar energy reflected off into space, and the Earth as a total system will have self-corrected. (I am pretty sure that James Lovelock, the Gaia man, would agree.)
That will likely result in an increase in extreme weather events, including flooding and blizzards in some areas. In Australia here we can get increases in the amount of cold air being dragged northwards from Antarctica, much to the delight of the coal shills and their AGW-denialist supporters, who take that as a sign of cooling. But the whole lot of it will likely result in increased glacier melt and sea level rise, the.
The best source on the latter that I know of is the Sea Level Research Group at the University of Colorado, who put the rate of rise at 3.4 +/-0.4 mm/y, and accelerating at 0.084 +/- 0.025 mm/y/y.
https://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Omar, the exact point I was trying to make. A lot of people shrug things off with “we’ll move agriculture north” and “let’s plan to go to Alaska’s beaches”. It”s not that simple. Weather and climate are one of the most complex systems we know about, which is why weather men will not tell you it’s 100% chance of rain even when it’s raining. Things are weird when dealing with weather.
Ecology is even more complex; the interactions are too complex for humans to comprehend, let alone trace.
This is a point I make frequently, as an ecologist. People think economics is complex; put up next to either climate or ecology, it’s as simple as putting a round peg in a round hole. No system we have created, no matter how complicated, comes near the environment to complexity.
So when we think about it, which would be easier for us to change? Most people throughout history have changed the environment, without clue one what we were doing. Now we have some ideas what we’ve done, but we can’t seem to stop. So we say “Okay, we’ll move agriculture north!”
Also, in addition to length of the day, there is soil, which is not good for agriculture in the tundra, for sure. Also there is growing seasons, which are short because of the tilt of the earth. Even without glaciers and with sea level rise, we are not likely to see such things as people predict.
As for coral? They need warm, shallow water. We might find it warmer, but it will be deeper, not shallower, and it will be less salty. IF we see coral surviving, they will be dramatically different from what we know. I do think life will survive. I don’t think it will look the same. The last time temperatures were as warm as predicted, it was tree ferns and dinosaurs, not humans, zebras, and elephants.
Sorry for the rant, but I don’t really know any environmental scientists who are anything but tense right now.
iknklast,
I first got the following, with which as an ecologist you are probably familiar, from an article by the economist JK Galbraith, “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse.” But he may have been quoting his fellow economist Herman E. Daly.
I am a partner in a cattle property on the NW Plains of New South Wales, where my wife and I spend a fair amount of our time. The wheat farmer on the block next to us (no names, no pack-drill) can only be described as a land-rapist. But as the old saying has it, “it is an ill wind that blows no man any good.” (From Shakespeare?)
The prevailing wind blows across the land-rapist’s place before reaching ours, and that man does not believe in fallowing. He simply grows crop after crop, relying on synthetic urea, superphosphate and other fertilisers, and also glyphosate to kill weeds. So his farm is rapidly blowing away. The clouds of topsoil coming off his place at times have turned day to night for us. And as our property has lots of wind-breaks in the form of trees, both old and newly-planted, we get a regular top-dressing, courtesy of him. And it stays with us. Over the last 20 years or so, he has probably raised the altitude of our place by something approaching one centimetre; which we don’t mind at all. And he never asks us for it back, possibly because he knows that our replies would only offend.
If he can keep that up, in the course of time his place will come to look more like a crater on the Moon; dark side of the Moon perhaps. Or maybe Mars.
;-)
https://www.bookbrowse.com/expressions/detail/index.cfm/expression_number/555/it-is-an-ill-wind-that-blows-nobody-good
Omar, I am familiar with that quote. I have used it from time to time. It’s quite correct. Without the environment, the economy is nothing.