[Coral-List] Ocean Temperatures Suddenly Over the Tipping Point!
Austin Bowden-Kerby
abowdenkerby at gmail.com
Thu Jul 20 22:25:10 UTC 2023
(Resending with modifications and graphs deleted, as I don't think it got
posted).
Update on the horrendous thermal anomaly situation:
Since I wrote, the situation with the global temperature spike
has worsened. We have surpassed the 21C mark for mean ocean temperature,
and the temperature continues to rise sharply. How high will this get
before it levels off? If you have not looked at this yet, please do, as it
promises to be a game changer for coral reefs and it is possibly a threat
to our careers.
A basic change appears to have happened to the earth's energy budget that
climate scientists are still trying to figure out. This spike started in
the ocean in March while the atmosphere did not go badly off-scale until
months later in June. A major change to the heat budget of the ocean has
occurred, such as what we might expect with the collapse or partial
collapse of the AMOC. This happened too suddenly and is too strong to be
attributed to El Nino. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
The data is conservative, as it is the average ocean temperature between
60N-60S, which excludes the polar areas. The Earth's oceans at these
latitudes are now a full degree hotter on average than they were 30 years
ago, in 1993.
Some have suggested that this spike might be a delayed impact of the
massive water release into the upper atmosphere by the Tonga volcano, and
if so, the temperatures should come down within 5 years or so. But what
will be left by then? Restoration is not possible in this situation, and
any coral work becomes threatened species conservation, the prevention of
local extinction. The skills learned by the restoration people are needed
now more than ever, but applied differently, to secure the genetic
diversity of each of the most vulnerable coral species.
In our Fiji sites, we started preparing three years ago for these sorts of
temperatures, which we expected would be coming 20 years from now- not
knowing that these temperatures would arrive so soon! We began sampling
corals of vulnerable genera from hot pocket reefs that reach 32-37C during
normal summer months, and moving these pre-adapted, bleaching resistant
corals, out to cooler water nurseries. We then established second
generation patches of heat adapted corals on the highly impacted and cooler
outer barrier reefs. We are in the process of recording the natural
processes of recovery and adaptation that these nucleation patches help
facilitate.
We are proposing what appears to be the first coral-focused and
participatory climate change adaptation paradigm. We welcome partnerships.
We call these strategies "Reefs of Hope", which these videos below explain
in variable detail.
4 minutes; Launching Reefs of Hope:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnJ-eUVJwqE
22 minutes; Details of Reefs of Hope :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG0lqKciXAA
21 minutes; Narrated regional scope powerpoint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arkeSGXfKMk
Publication on ROH coral-focused climate change adaptation strategies:
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2/pdf
If any in the Caribbean and Florida, with collections of coral diversity
representing years of work, are facing bleaching, I suggest that you act to
save your corals, and not just watch them die, hoping for the best.
Several options are available: If you have a diverse coral nursery in
danger of bleaching, I encourage you to shade the nursery, to prevent these
genotypes from bleaching and potentially dying out. Translocation of heat
adapted corals out to cooler waters might also be possible, shading any
moved corals as reorientation during high UV periods will cause sunburn on
any new upper surfaces.
Regards to all,
Austin
Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
https://www.corals4conservation.org
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
<https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/>
On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 12:35 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> Smith, J., Risk, M., Schwarcz, H. *et al.* Rapid climate change in the
> North Atlantic during the Younger Dryas recorded by deep-sea corals.
> *Nature* 386, 818–820 (1997).
>
> Abstract
>
> Research on global climate change has increasingly focused on rapid
> (century-scale and decadal) changes. One such climate shift, the Younger
> Dryas cooling event1, took place during the last deglaciation, from 13,000
> to 11,700 years BP. Climate records from Greenland ice cores and North
> Atlantic sediment cores show high-frequency fluctuations implying
> significant (>5 °C) shifts in temperature at this time, taking place within
> 50–100 years (ref. 2). The origin of the Younger Dryas has recently been
> attributed to a reduction or cessation of deep-water production in the
> North Atlantic and a concurrent lessening of the heat flux from low
> latitudes3,4. The role of intermediate waters (1,000–2,000 m depth) is less
> certain, however, because climate proxies for this ocean reservoir are rare
> and ambiguous. Here we report on the use of a new climate archive, deep-sea
> corals from Orphan knoll (1,600m depth) in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean.
> The oxygen isotope ratios in the coral skeletons (accurately dated by the
> 230Th/234U chronometric method) change markedly coincident with the
> initiation of the Younger Dryas, suggesting that there were profound
> changes in intermediate-water circulation at this time.
>
> Not open-access.
>
> (amazing what you can find on Google Scholar.)
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> On Mon, Jul 10, 2023 at 4:27 AM Risk, Michael via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> > Austin:
> >
> > This is a list devoted (supposedly) to corals. Re the Atlantic
> > circulation: in 1997 (Smith et al, Science), using data obtained from
> a
> > suite of deepwater corals, we suggested that the collapse could take
> > place in less than 5 years. Of course, we don't know when the meter
> > started running-we could be 4 years into this already.
> >
> > Mike
> > __________________________________________________________________
> >
> > From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf
> of
> > Austin Bowden-Kerby via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Sent: Sunday, July 9, 2023 6:14 PM
> > To: Coral-List Subscribers <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Subject: [Coral-List] Ocean Temperatures Suddenly Over the Tipping
> > Point?
> >
> > Caution: This email may have originated from outside the organization.
> > Please exercise additional caution with any links and attachments.
> > Dear everyone,
> > I am posting this because it is time for everyone to look up from our
> > busy
> > lives and face a new reality. It looks like we have gone over a major
> > tipping point, but judge for yourself.
> > Something happened to cause the average temperature of the ocean to
> > suddenly jump by about 0.7C from the 1982-2011average, and it is not
> El
> > Nino. The graph is absolutely shocking.
> > [1]https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ The graphs are
> > updated
> > daily.
> > Unfortunately as far as the timeline to 1.5C, all of the former
> > information
> > has suddenly become inaccurate. We went above the 1.5C threshold in
> > June.
> > [2]
> https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/media-centre/news/2023/copernicus-rec
> > ords-first-june-breach-15degc-climate-threshold
> > And these temperatures are now holding.
> > This crazy and almost unbelievable jump in temperature appears to be
> > related to the delayed impacts of the Tonga eruption.
> > [3]
> https://www.carbonbrief.org/tonga-volcano-eruption-raises-imminent-r
> > isk-of-temporary-1-5c-breach/
> > But the increase is much worse than what these atmospheric scientists
> > predicted back in January. They say that the temporary heating
> effects
> > of
> > the water vapor in the upper atmosphere will last for five years, but
> I
> > read elsewhere that it could be a decade.
> > But my Question now is this: what If the Atlantic overturning
> > circulation
> > were to suddenly collapse due to this being superimposed on
> > anthropogenic Carbon emissions? And how long would it take for us to
> > even
> > know, and when that happens, how long will it take before the surface
> > waters of the ocean warm up (like we are seeing now)?
> > [4]
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/23/ocean-heatwave-nor
> > thatlantic-uk-climate/
> > The photos of severe bleaching in Belize, posted on Facebook by
> > Fragments
> > of Hope, are heartbreaking. It started in June, and the only source
> of
> > relief will be a near-miss hurricane or tropical storm.
> > Have we suddenly fast-forwarded 27 years to 2050 conditions?
> > Austin
> > Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
> > Corals for Conservation
> > [5]https://www.corals4conservation.org
> > Publication on C4C's coral-focused climate change adaptation
> > strategies:
> > [6]https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2/pdf
> > Film on our "Reefs of Hope" coral restoration for climate change
> > adaptation
> > strategies: [7]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG0lqKciXAA
> > [8]
> https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-
> > coral-bleaching/
> > <[9]
> https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive
> > -coral-bleaching/>
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > [10]https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
> > References
> >
> > 1. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
> > 2.
> >
> https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/media-centre/news/2023/copernicus-records-first-june-breach-15degc-climate-threshold
> > 3.
> >
> https://www.carbonbrief.org/tonga-volcano-eruption-raises-imminent-risk-of-temporary-1-5c-breach/
> > 4.
> >
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/23/ocean-heatwave-northatlantic-uk-climate/
> > 5. https://www.corals4conservation.org/
> > 6. https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2/pdf
> > 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG0lqKciXAA
> > 8.
> >
> https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
> > 9.
> >
> https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
> > 10. https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
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