[Coral-List] Ocean Temperatures Suddenly Over the Tipping Point!
arsenia margaret reilly-collins
arsenia.reilly at gmail.com
Sat Jul 22 20:34:58 UTC 2023
“ FORT LAUDERDALE — Some Florida Keys coral reefs are losing their color
weeks earlier than normal this summer because of record-high water
temperatures, meaning they are under stress and their health is potentially
endangered, federal scientists said.
The corals should be vibrant and colorful this time of year, but are
swiftly going white, said Katey Lesneski, research and monitoring
coordinator for Mission: Iconic Reefs, which the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration launched to protect Florida coral reefs.
“The corals are pale, it looks like the color’s draining out,” said
Lesneski, who has spent several days on the reefs over the last two weeks.
“And some individuals are stark white. And we still have more to come.”
Scientists with NOAA this week raised their coral bleaching warning system
to Alert Level 2 for the Keys, their highest heat stress level out of five.
That level is reached when the average water surface temperature is about
1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above th..”
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2023/07/22/scientists-say-florida-keys-coral-reefs-are-already-bleaching-as-water-temperatures-hit-record-highs/?share=stsyeeaiaroa2snao30e
On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 7:01 PM Austin Bowden-Kerby via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> (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
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
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