[Coral-List] Fw: Chagos MPA - Continuing internationaldisputeoverboundaries

Magnus Johnson m.johnson at hull.ac.uk
Thu Sep 30 08:17:41 EDT 2010


It's not an area I know loads about (and I don't think it has much to do
with the morals of ethnic cleansing of Chagos) but isn't there the added
problem that with increased temperatures the frequency of hurricane type
events is going to increase -> reefs would need to accrete at a faster
rate to compensate?  Or would more frequent events lead to higher rates
of coral substrate formation?

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
[mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Douglas
Fenner
Sent: 30 September 2010 00:10
To: Ulf Erlingsson; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Fw: Chagos MPA - Continuing
internationaldisputeoverboundaries

But as I tried to point out in my message, the best available scientific

evidence now clearly predicts that in the future mass coral deaths due
to 
coral bleaching will occur, and ocean acidification and reduced calcium 
carbonate saturation will greatly reduce inorganic precipitation (ooid 
precipitation is as far as I know a major factor only in the Bahamas 
currently, though the Yucatan Penninsula and parts of Florida may have
been 
built largely of them, that was a long time ago.  Geologists may want to

clarify that.).  Reef calcification rates will drop dramatically.  I
think a 
consequence of these events will be that reef growth will slow 
substantially, and very likely won't be able to keep up with sea level
rise.
    Net effect is that yes, if current conditions continued, atolls
should 
be able to keep up with current sea level rise.  But I believe there is 
every reason to predict that in the future, perhaps less than 50 years
down 
the road, they won't be able to.  And won't again for a very, very long 
time.  Atolls that are currently inhabitable will likely continue to be
so 
for a few decades, but are likely to be increasingly more difficult to
live 
on with time.   Doug


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ulf Erlingsson" <ceo at lindorm.com>
To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 4:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Fw: Chagos MPA - Continuing international 
disputeoverboundaries


> Let me point out that the argument that atolls will sink due to sea
> level rise due to global warming fails to take into account the
> geomorphological mechanisms by which atolls are created and grow.
> They grow, slowly, through coral reef growth (as should be no news to
> anyone on this list), through littoral processes, and through
> chemical precipitation, i.e., when the water gets supersaturated with
> respect to CaCO2 the calcium is precipitated in layers on ooid sand
> grains, eventually building up large land masses such as the Bahamas.
>
> The problem is only when the sea level rises quicker than these
> processes can keep up with. However, the predicted rise in sea level
> is much smaller than the quickest and largest sea level rise in the
> recent past. See http://erlingsson.com/authorship/CIS2GOM.html
>
> Of course, that event did drown large areas that are now sea floor,
> but others managed to remain above water. A question of interest is,
> naturally, what lessons we can learn from that event.
>
> Ulf
>
> On 2010-09-28, at 22:41, Douglas Fenner wrote:
>
>> But those same atolls may not be
>>  inhabited much longer, due to sea level rise.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list 

_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/pipermail/coral-list/attachments/20100930/61d31ca0/attachment.pl 


More information about the Coral-List mailing list