[Coral-List] More about the climate threat to reef-protected coasts and atolls, plus the recent sand island-building issue

John McManus jmcmanus at rsmas.miami.edu
Sun May 10 17:51:42 EDT 2015


Hi Doug,

 

Thank you for your helpful thoughts on this (under the ‘Reassessing…’ header). As I am writing a relevant manuscript, these discussions are quite helpful. 

 

Here is the abstract of the 1998 Graus and MacIntyre paper:

“ABSTRACT: Computer simulations with the COREEF model (Graus et al. 1984) demonstrate that the growth of Caribbean coral reefs will

be unable to match all but the most optimistic predicted rates of sea level rise that global warming is expected to cause over the next few

centuries. and, therefore. these reefs will gradually become more submerged. As they deepen, higher waves will propagate into back-reef

areas, altering the ecological and sedimentological zonation patterns and accelerating the erosion of leeward shelves and shores. Resuspended 

sediment will increase the turbidity, causing the demise of sediment-sensitive corals and possibly entire reef communities.”

 

This paper was one of a series published by the authors over more than a decade, and based on validations including extensive field studies and the large number of reef borings by MacIntyre. The model included a storm surge component, represented by the GINT model of the US Army Corps of Engineers, and accounted well for movements of various shapes and sizes of reef materials. Although the work was specific to the Caribbean, I believe it is quite relevant to the Pacific. Despite the differences in species composition, the geomorphologies of upper reef slopes, reef crests and reef flats of both regions are remarkably similar.   

 

<< The rest of this is necessarily quite lengthy, so readers please continue only if you want to understand more about the threat climate change poses to reef-protected coastlines and atolls. >>

 

The storm wave problem will vary by location. Generally, one does not find cyclones within 5 degrees north and south of the equator, because Coriolus effect there is too weak to form cyclonic motion. Additionally, cyclones are rare in the South Atlantic for other reasons. However, most reef areas can be expected to suffer from exposure to Cat 1 or greater cyclones within decadal timeframes. 

 

Yesterday, a Cat 5 cyclone hit northeastern Luzon. On Google Earth, we can see a fairly standard-looking fringing reef (18°29'53.07" N 122°15'05.34" E). This reef is typically hit by cyclones at least annually, and so is a windward, high energy reef structure. Even in the relatively calm period of the current image, one can see standard oceanic waves breaking along a reef crest, with very little impact along the reef flat. The recent Ferrario et al. 2014 paper indicates that on average, the reef reduces energy by 97%, with about 86% attributable to the crest. Water breaks over the crest and primarily flows back toward the reef flat, and laterally to flow out through channels. If the recent storm had a major impact, it might have been to throw more material from the reef slope up onto the crest area. However, if the crest was in deeper water, the Graus and MacIntyre work indicates that much more erosion would have occurred behind and across the reef crest. Once erosion of the crest has begun, the combination of weakening of the crest and the impacts of erosive sediments on living organisms would permit later, large waves to ‘tear up’ this part of the reef, rounding it downward, and eroding away towards shore. This effect can be seen in the fact that one rarely, if ever, sees a standard reef flat and crest formation in water deeper than that in which the crest is breaking the waves to such extremes. For example, some of the surfing beaches of Hawaii are fringed by reef structures of broad shallow slopes, along which waves of various heights crest and roll up to the shore. In some cases, the deeper waves crest over ‘reef breaks’, which are sharp changes in slope well below low tides. This erosive wave rolling is not found on classic reefs with intertidal reef crests. On the latter, one often finds houses on stilts and fishers using simple rafts instead of boats – as there is no expectation of waves being a problem except in extreme cases. Clearly, the cyclonic surge (water sucked up into the cyclone like a single hill of 5 to 25 ft height) would have swept across the reef crest and flat, but this rare event (associated with the eye of the cyclone) is not the source of erosion of major concern. Rather, it is wave erosion from trains of storm waves that will tear down the reef structure if the crest is no longer in an intertidal position. I think that cases where this action causes the actual ‘death’ of a reef would be extremely rare. Rather, the upper reef structure would turn into a sloping, rounded shape with much less value for wave reduction.   

 

One can see a spectra of unsuccessful, successful and threatened reef responses to relative sea levels at South Johnson Reef in the Spratly Islands (9°42'40.70" N 114°21'28.14" E). From an eye-altitude of about 1000 km, ones sees that the Spratly Islands are underlain by ridges associated with (ophiolite-like) ‘wrinkling’ of the ocean bottom as it approached an ancient subduction zone alongside Palawan. In a slight variation of Darwinian reef formation, the reefs began as fringing reefs along these ridges, and became barriers and then atolls as the deeper waters associated with the subduction zone were approached. Dropping to an eye altitude of 70 km, we see that South Johnson Reef is actually the lower point of a 40 km long atoll. Most of that atoll was unable to keep up with sea level, and are rounded walls now well below the surface. The portions that did keep up became atolls and partial atolls themselves. From an eye-altitude of 7 km, we see one of the recent sand structures under construction on South Johnson Reef. In previous years, there was only a small military base built on stilts. As this is a typhoon-frequent area, even the structure on stilts would not be practical were it not for the surrounding reef crest. The sand structure would not be able to survive either without an intertidal reef crest. However, the sand dredging and piling itself now threatens the capacity of the crest to keep up with sea level rise, via injury to the natural calcification processes which keep the reef crest growing at their current rate. 

 

I will just add that there is no simple relationship between reef building and the growth rate of calcifers. In high energy areas, many or most of the coral colonies will be broken and moved before incorporation into the substrate, as described in Hubbard et al (1990). Traditionally, reef crests were often described in terms of the laying of calcareous encrusting algae – a process which is exceedingly slow. However, even where this is clearly the case there are issues such as progradation across upper reef slopes which alter the net rate of upward growth. Part of this process involves the rates at which calcareous sand naturally cements together once trapped by bits of substrate, corals or sponges. All of these processes are directly affected by complex hydrodynamics. Despite finding more than 18,000 papers on coral reefs within the last 20 years in the Web of Science, Ferrario et al (2014) found that only 255 mentioned wave attenuation, and only 27 of these had useable values. We are clearly a long way from understanding how reefs actually grow, and particularly how they will fare under climate change.

 

Cheers!

 

John

 

F. Ferrario et al., The effectiveness of coral reefs for coastal hazard risk reduction and adaptation. Nat Commun 5,  (2014)

 

Hubbard et al., Production and Cycling of Calcium Carbonate in a Shelf-Edge Reef System (St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands): Applications to the Nature of Reef Systems in the Fossil Record. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. Vol. 60 (1990)No. 3. (May), Pages 335-360 

 

Graus RR, McIntyre IG (1998) Global warming and the future of Caribbean coral reefs. Carbonates & Evaporites13(1):43-47.

 

 

 

From: Douglas Fenner [mailto:douglasfennertassi at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2015 5:06 PM
To: John McManus
Cc: coral list
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Reassessing Coral Reef Scientists

 

Thanks for this, John.

    What you say about measuring reef growth on the reef slope instead of the reef flat because the reef flat has limited accommodation space, makes perfect sense to me, the reef can't grow upward where it has already reached the surface.  That implies that if the water surface was higher, that it could grow upward, that is, grow upward faster than it is now, since the reef flat is now limited by the water level, if coral grows up into the air, it will die.

    I was with you until near the end.  I certainly agree we need to do all we can to keep natural processes unimpeded.

    In terms of ripping up reefs, I think such ripping happens during the most powerful storms, not during the normal wave action on reefs, or else there would be no reefs left.  I think it is the most powerful waves during the most powerful hurricanes (or cyclones or typhoons) that have their eye wall closest to a particular reef that do the most mechanical damage.  I remember reading a paper by Stoddart that was in the ICRS proceedings, of the 2nd time the symposium was held, if I remember.  In that paper, he documented that Hurricane Hattie ripped out the whole spur and groove system of a section of reef in Belize.  "Groove-spur systems were removed from reef fronts..."  That's a relatively rare incident, but shows the power of hurricanes.  Also, reefs recover from remarkable natural damage.  Or else they wouldn't still be here after many millions of years (present living reefs are only a few thousand years old, but they grow on top of structures that often are much older.  The atoll, Enewetok, in the Marshall Islands, was found at the bottom of the carbonate in the drill hole to have reef carbonate 60 million years old, if I remember.  Somehow as an atoll it survived and kept growing for 60 million years, fast enough to keep up with periods of sea level rise during periods of ice cap melt and with subsidence of the atoll as well, probably with some on and off periods of growth.  It takes about 12 million years for an atoll to form around a sinking volcano, I think I read.  There are thousands of atolls that survived the fastest rates of sea level rise at the end of the last ice age, but most would have karst structures that projected as much as about 150 m above the lowest sea level stand, I would think, which corals could grow up the side of as sea level rose.  But only if the waves hadn't ripped it apart and washed it away.  There are also a few raised atolls, like Nauru and Niue in the Pacific, which have  significant amount of carbonate well above the sea level, which never got washed away as the island rose.)  The comment in Science by Hubbard et al argued that atolls would be built up above sea levels as sea levels rise, instead of being eroded faster.    

     The problem I see is that I think that when a reef has a reef crest, most of the wave energy is expended at the reef crest, and only a small portion then travels across the reef flat and hits the shoreline.  That is, a reef crest that is at or above the low tide level, and a reef flat that is around the level of the lowest tides.  If water depth increases, wave motion on the reef flat and the energy it expends on the reef flat, increases.  Since in increasing water depth drag from the reef on a wave decreases, in increasing depth more of the energy survives the crest and is then available to be expended on the reef flat.  So with increasing depth, energy increases on the reef flat, and decreases on the crest, for the same size of wave (if wave energy increases on the reef flat, the energy had to come from somewhere, it came from reduced energy expended on the crest).  So I would think that increasing water depth would decrease the wave energy expended on the crest (much like the fact that the deeper you go on a reef slope, the less wave surge you feel).  The crest will still take the brunt of the energy, unless the water gets so deep that waves don't break.  For large waves in a hurricane, that seems very unlikely given the huge size of the waves, water depth would have to increase a great deal to not have large waves break on the crest (water depth often does increase a lot in hurricanes, in what is called "storm surge" from both the wave pile-up on shore and the lower air pressures in the center of the cyclonic storm).  So increasing water depth would decrease the chance of ripping up the crest, if I'm right.  Increasing water depth would also decrease the chance of ripping up the reef slope.  It would increase the chance on the reef flat, but then the wave has still expended most of its energy on the crest, and it is much less likely to rip up the reef flat than the crest.  Where there are rubble beds or sand or sediment or loose corals on the reef flat, those will surely be ripped up, mobilized and damage living corals.  When the waves hit the shoreline, they will expend most of their remaining energy I would think (other than a smaller amount taken away in a reflected wave), and so would do more damage to the shoreline than when the water was shallower.  If the shoreline is soft sediment it will be eroded more rapidly.  If it is hard rock, then it may depend on how solid the rock is and how big the waves are, whether the waves are able to rip the shoreline rock up or not.  

     I see these things on a daily basis, as water levels go up and down with tides.  When water level is at its lowest, virtually all wave energy is expended at the crest and nearly none reaches the shore.  As water levels rise with tides, more and more waves make it across the reef flats and strike the shoreline harder and harder with increasing depth.  Field et al (2011) show that wave surge (orbital velocity) on reef flats increases proportionately to water depth on the reef flat during the tidal cycle (Figure 3a).

      And last, if increasing sea levels led to the breaching of the ramparts and the washing away of shallow reef structures, there would have been no reefs left after the Holocene sea level rise (transgression).  At the lowest sea stand about 22,500 years ago, the sea level was 125 m or so lower than today (somebody correct me if I've got that wrong).  Some of today's reefs have surely started on shorelines way above that level in relatively recent times and grown from there.  But that's not available to atolls, where the reef has no land to move up on or restart on.  If rising sea level rise caused most reefs to be ripped apart and washed away, there would be no atolls left.  But there are thousands of them.

      Surely the ability of a reef to keep up with sea level rise depends partly on how fast the sea is rising, and how fast the reef can grow upward.  The latter in turn depends on which calcifiers are present on the reef, how much area they cover, and how fast they grow.  The more reef area covered by the fastest calcifiers, the faster the reef should be able to grow, other things like storms being equal.  Humans causing the loss of living corals will slow reef growth (unless the growth rate of other calcifiers like calcareous algae increases, which seems unlikely), whether the cause is sediment, nutrients, overfishing, coral bleaching, acidification, or other things.  Someone pointed to a paper that showed that Caribbean reefs are no longer able to grow upward as fast as sea level rise.  Given the massive loss of corals in the Caribbean and Florida, that's not much of a surprise.  Not all reefs have lost as much living coral as the Caribbean and Florida, but the trends are in the wrong direction most places, and the future looks even worse.

      People who know the oceanography of wave energy please correct me if I'm wrong.

     Cheers,  Doug

 

The following paper by Field et al presents a good and easily read review of the evidence that rising sea levels will harm corals on many fringing reef flats, by mobilizing sediment on reef flats and eroding sediments along shorelines.

 

Field, M.E., Ogsten, A.S., and Storlazzi, C.D.  2011.  Rising sea level may cause decline of fringing coral reefs.  EOS 92: 273-280.

 

Stoddart, D.R.  1974.  Post-hurricane changes on the British Honduras reefs: re-survey of 1972.  Proceedings 2nd Int. Coral Reef Symposium 2: 473-483.  (available from www.reefbase.org)

 

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 9:52 AM, John McManus <jmcmanus at rsmas.miami.edu> wrote:

A helpful new paper on reef growth rates is:
George Roff, Jian-xin Zhao, and John M. Pandolfi (2015) Rapid accretion of inshore reef slopes from the central Great Barrier Reef during the late Holocene.

To reduce the issue of 'vertical accommodation space' (sea level limiting coral growth and reef accretion), they focused on reef slopes instead of flats in mid-GBR reefs. Using thermal ionization mass spectrometry to date sections of cores identified via CAT scans, they found reef growth rates averaging 8.8 mm/yr. There have been other studies giving similar values for some reefs.

The worst case (RCP 8.5) IPCC projection set for rate of sea level rise by 2100 ranges from about 7 to 15 mm/yr (Church et al 2013). However, as pointed out in other postings, sea level is rising at different rates around the world, and the rate may be influenced over time by cycles, changes in current patterns (current motion plus Coriolus effect can 'pile-up' water), rapid influxes of melt-water altering the volumes, salinities and temperatures of various water masses, and other factors. The rates of reef growth and sea level rise appear in general to be close enough that reef damage is likely to be a deciding factor.

Other than intact, dead coral skeletons, paving by encrusting corals and calcareous algae, etc., sand is a crucial element of reef building. A wide range of species of many phyla create that sand, including a surprisingly high percentage of macroalgae species which have various levels of calcium carbonate in their bodies. Grammer et al. 1999 showed that calcareous sand (at least oolitic sands) can cement together substantially within about 8 months in sea water. However, the process will certainly be disrupted by even small increases in wave action. Storms will tear away standing corals (dead and alive), large sponges,  and the sand and sand concretions that pile up against them.  Moving sand around under wave action can scour corals or settle on them causing necrosis (Riegl 1995). A lot of atoll island building occurs due to massive chunks of reef material being ripped up during storms, even without sea level out-growing reef crests. As sea level rises above a wave-breaking crest, that increase of wave energy mentioned by Dennis Hubbard will likely tear holes and channels where they weren't before. Shallow reef structures may be simply torn away. Much of the emphasis on the early modelling of potential impacts of sea level rise by Graus and McIntyre was focused on the role of storm waves in shaping reef structure. Basically, once the 'ramparts' have been breached, we can expect the pillaging to begin. We have to do all we can to keep these 'ramparts' intact, by keeping natural processes unimpeded.


Church, J.A., P.U. Clark, A. Cazenave, J.M. Gregory, S. Jevrejeva, A. Levermann, M.A. Merrifield, G.A. Milne, R.S. Nerem, P.D. Nunn, A.J. Payne, W.T. Pfeffer, D. Stammer and A.S. Unnikrishnan, 2013: Sea Level Change. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

GRAMMER, G.M., CRESCINI, C.M., MCNEILL, D.F., AND TAYLOR, L.H., 1999, Quantifying rates of syndepositional marine cementation in deeper platform environments - New insight into a fundamental process: Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 69, p. 202- 207.

Graus RR, McIntyre IG (1998) Global warming and the future of Caribbean coral reefs. Carbonates & Evaporites13(1):43-47.

Riegl, B. (1995) Effects of sand deposition on scleractinian and alcyonacean corals. Marine Biology, 121, 517-526. doi:10.1007/BF00349461.


John

John W. McManus, PhD
Director, National Center for Coral Reef Research (NCORE)
Professor, Marine Biology and Ecology
Coral Reef Ecology and Management Lab (CREM Lab)
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS)
University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, 33149
jmcmanus at rsmas.miami.edu      http://ncore.rsmas.miami.edu/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Mcmanus4

"If you lose a diamond ring in the bedroom, don't look for it in the living room just because the light there is better".





-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Richard Dunne
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 12:24 PM
To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> list
Cc: Dennis Hubbard
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Reassessing Coral Reef Scientists

As a co-author on one of those papers [Brown et al. (2011) Increased sea level promotes coral cover on shallow reef flats in the Andaman Sea, eastern Indian Ocean. Coral Reefs 30:867-878] I would encourage Denny, Doug and others who are interested in sea-level rise and variability to have a look at a very good book [Church et al. (2010) Understanding sea-level rise and variability. Wiley-Blackwell 428pp]. Most of the answers to the questions and discussions are found there.

We tend to have too simplistic a view of sea-level. It is highly dynamic not just on the scale of the tides (hours, days, months) but also by season, by year, decade, and longer cycles (50-60 years). Add to this Indian Ocean Dipole (sea level in the Indian Ocean can change by up to 40cm due to this for months on end), ENSO, weather effects, etc and we have a very complex variable. As far as long-term sea level is concerned this may be the least of a reef flat coral's worries. Also don't forget that corals grow laterally - not just upwards.

We also tend to think of corals dying when aerially exposed. The reef flats at Phuket, Thailand where we work are exposed for up to 4 hours in the baking tropical sun. They thrive - admittedly only a few hardy adapted species. They are then bathed in a soup of sediment and particulates which they consume voraciously and grow fast as a result.
Their colour is also deep chocolate brown because they are bursting with zooxanthellae (x10 the normally accepted numbers). Barbara (Brown's) papers for which she was recently awarded the ISRS 'Eminence in Research Award' document this. There are plenty of such intertidal reefs around SE Asia.

For those interested in the declining growth rate picture a paper not yet mentioned is Tanzil et al. (2013) Regional decline in growth rates of massive Porites corals in Southeast Asia. Global Change Biology 19:3011-3023. It contains a very good introduction which draws together the work of Lough, Cooper, De'ath, etc. It illustrates that for SE Asian reefs where the mean annual water temperature is  >28.5C (compared to approx 26.7C on the GBR) although there has been an overall long-term decline in linear extension and calcification with rising sea temperature there was significant variability between locations. Once again it is a complex picture. Correct me if I am wrong but I am still waiting to read a paper where OA is shown to contribute to such long-term declines despite the hype.

Richard P Dunne


On 15/04/2015 00:56, Douglas Fenner wrote:
> Dennis,
>      Thanks for this!  I had read that there were some surprising
> regional differences in the rate of sea level rise.  Initially, that
> didn't make any sense to me.  If I remember, there has been a lot of
> sea level rise on the US east coast.  Thinking about it, I think sea level has to be isostatic.
> So, for instance, tiny perturbations in sea level can reveal hidden
> seamounts that add just enough gravitational pull, to very slightly
> increase the sea level over them.  A very small effect that can be
> detected by satellites to map the unseen sea floor, but one that won't
> change over our lifetimes.  Another effect is shifting wind patterns,
> that push water west in the Pacific in some periods, but not others,
> leading to changes in sea levels of up to about 20 cm I believe.
> These wind changes in the Pacific tend to happen during El Nino
> periods, as documented by Chowdhury et al, 2007.  Very ephemeral
> event, happens over periods of months.  But fully capable of killing
> corals on shallow reef flats.  Still another is due to differences in
> the water itself.  If there is slightly warmer water somewhere in the
> water column in one area, that water expands, lifting the surface
> water.  But, correct me if I'm wrong, that water remains isostatic, so
> it doesn't flatten out quickly, like it would if water was suddenly
> added to the area.  This could happen, say, if on the Antarctic coast,
> water was not quite as cold as normal, say, one degree warmer.  Water
> there is more saline and colder than elsewhere, so it sinks, then
> spreads as a deep water layer northward in the oceans.  Antarctic deep
> water, or some such name.  If it is slightly warmer, that layer could
> lift the surface slightly, and it could stay that way as long as the
> deep water layer stays there and stays warmer.  Converse for cooler water.  I think it is the case that these could stay for at least years, if not decades or longer.
>       Thanks for pointing this out and reminding us.
>        My own guess is that the increase in coral cover on shallow
> reef flats, which is documented in two studies so far and fits with
> logic and observation, that coral that grows faster than the reef and
> grows faster than current sea level rise, some of it growing very
> fast, and between the lowest tides from one year to the next can grow
> high enough that when the lowest tides happen, exposure kills the
> exposed fast growing coral.  (By the way, I think sea level was rising
> at 3 mm a year during the period that data was taken in both of those
> two papers I referred to, so it can happen in spite of current sea
> level rise.)  That means that the live coral cover that fast growing
> species provides (which is likely to be a small part of all coral
> cover and even a smaller portion of all cover on the reef flat), will
> go up and down over the course of a year or a few years, as the two
> published studies I referred to document, and as I have personally

> seen..  I think that means that the variability in coral cover on reef

> flats varies over time enough that will make it harder to detect any
> effect of overall increasing coral cover due to increasing depths.  (I
> also suspect there are rather few coral cover baselines on reef flats
> around the world, most reef scientists don't seem to consider them
> important and study reef slopes instead.  It is true that they can be
> hard to access on snorkel since you get bashed by waves at high tide,
> and walking around at low tide your eyes are farther from the reef and
> tapes can be pulled or ripped by waves, etc etc.  Not an easy place to
> work.)  That and the fact that you point out that sea level in
> different places is likely to be going up and down, faster or slower,
> over time scales of at least years if not decades or longer.  I agree
> with you that over the long haul, sea level rise has to be the same at
> all locations, if it should end up being an average of 60 cm higher in
> 2100, it could be 60 cm + the current local effects of these warm
> bulges in one place, and 60 cm - effects of cold bulges another place,
> but they will all average out to 60 cm.  Plus any effects of changing wind patterns.  That kind of variability will make it even more difficult to detect the effect I was predicting.
>       Add to that, what I've always said along.  The sea level is
> rising only 3 mm a year now, and within 3-4 decades or less, it is
> highly likely mass coral bleaching will be killing lots of coral.
> Almost surely not all coral, because not all corals are equally
> sensitive, and because corals have been demonstrated to be able to acclimate and/or adapt at least some.
> But coral cover is highly likely to go down, especially during the big
> events like the 1998 El Nino.  In 40 years, at 3 mm rise a year,
> that's a total of 120 mm or just 12 cm rise.  Spread out over 4
> decades.  I think likely the effect I was predicting will be very
> small at any one point in time, because some corals grow much faster
> than the sea level rise, and get killed back all the time.  Maybe
> slower growing corals like massive
> *Porites* will show it better, since they won't be growing so much
> faster than the sea level.  That's so many variables that it would
> likely take a quantitative model to find out what is most likely to happen.
>       Net effect, is that while I predicted a positive effect on coral
> cover on shallow reef flats, I think it is going to be hard to detect,
> and be ephemeral, lasting at most a few decades.
>       There is no way that this effect I predicted is going to save
> reefs or negate the effects of high temperatures or acidification, or
> anything like that.  It will surely be a tiny blip, if anything.  But
> it is a positive prediction based on what we know about coral growth
> rates, what limits coral growth on reef flats, and rising sea levels.
> I think people have been inclined to dismiss it out of hand, because
> it is a possible, if tiny, positive effect of climate change.
>      Cheers, Doug
>
> Chowdhury, M.R., Chu, P-S., Schroeder, T.  2007.  ENSO and seasonal
> sea-level variability - a diagnostic discussion for the
> U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands.  Theor. Appl. Climatol. 88: 213-224.
>
> On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Dennis Hubbard
> <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu
>> wrote:
>> Hi Doug:
>>
>> I didn't want to just go dark, but it's the time of year when student
>> theses, end-of-year chair duties and all those other fun parts of
>> academia get superimposed. So, I'll have to get back to you when I'm
>> out of the weeds.Actually, Lucien and a few of us have been
>> discussing this quite a lot over the past 18 months. The one outlier
>> that we weren't aware of is the new Topex-Poseidon data show that sea
>> level is rising at very different rates in different places for
>> reasons having nothing to do with subsidence, tectonics or the usual
>> cast of characters for regional differences in SL rise on a scale of
>> centuries to millennia. Near Australia, it's going up at ca 10 mm/yr
>> while in other places it is actually dropping. What seems to be
>> emerging is a relationship with ENSO like cycles that operate over
>> scales of decades to perhaps 60 years. Obviously, sea level can't
>> continue to rise at these differential rates indefinitely or else
>> we're going to see people water skiing without boats from Australia to the US on the resulting water-surface slope.
>>
>> So..... if these areas of "winners" and :losers" are ephemeral and
>> operate on time scales of several decades, that's going to mean that
>> all those new corals on GBR reef flats (IF SL rise does encourage
>> coral recruitment or
>> survival) are going to get whacked when SL starts dropping on the GBR
>> and rising across the pond. I don't claim to understand the dynamics,
>> but it seems inescapable that what goes up must come down - and if
>> there are places where SL is rising faster (and presumably there are
>> fewer low tides) over the next two decades, they are in for a big
>> disappointment down the line. I'm hoping that somewhere the modelers
>> can give us a back-of-the-envelope calculation on the periodicity and
>> amplitude of these excursions. In the meantime, it seems like trying
>> to extrapolate from what we're seeing on a decadal scale to even a
>> few centuries ignore the likelihood that the variability is going to
>> totally swamp the success rate in the longer run. So, unless we're
>> going to open a market for "coral futures", these short-term patterns
>> are not going to be helpful. I can't even begin to predict what the
>> magnitude of these might be, but from what little I've read these
>> patterns we're just beginning to see may end up being the critical piece of the puzzle.
>>
>> I wish I had a better answer,
>>
>> Dennis
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 5:41 PM, Douglas Fenner <
>> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dennis,
>>>       I agree with much of what you say.  I was very unspecific
>>> about what I meant by reef flat, sorry.  I was thinking of reef
>>> flats that are very close to the lowest tide levels of the year.  I
>>> agree that corals 2-3 m deep can grow without being limited by exposure to air at low tides.
>>>       I was trying to make the point that on reef flats that
>>> shallow, any corals that grow above the level of the lowest tides of
>>> the year will be killed by exposure during those low tides.  They
>>> can grow higher than that the rest of the year, but will be killed
>>> by exposure to air by the lowest tides.  Low tides limit the growth
>>> of corals on reef flats, that is for sure, corals die in air (though
>>> they can last for perhaps a few hours at most in air).
>>>       The two papers I referred to document that when there are
>>> longer periods without the lowest tides, coral cover increases on
>>> these shallow reef flats.  That makes sense to me, because when the
>>> lowest tide occur, they kill corals that have grown too high.  Most
>>> of us would see increased coral cover as a good thing, and these two
>>> papers plus the observation of low tides killing corals on the reef
>>> flat, indicate that sea level rise will lead to increased live coral
>>> cover on shallow reef flats.  Actually, if the reef flats don't grow
>>> upward at all, the effect should be larger than if the reef flats do
>>> grow upward, since the water will be deeper as sea level rises, and
>>> thus there will be more room for corals to grow.  That might well
>>> lead to more coral cover on shallow reef flats than would be the
>>> case if the reef flats grow upward.  But the more live coral there
>>> is on the reef flat, the faster the reef flat should be able to grow
>>> upward I would think, since the corals are the fastest growing
>>> calcifiers on the reef flat, the more corals the faster the reef flat would grow upward, I would think.  I don't know if that's been documented.
>>>       I don't know how many reefs will manage to keep up with sea
>>> level rise.  The article I read on reef growth rates, Montaggioni,
>>> 2005, says that average growth of catch-up reefs is 3-4 mm a year,
>>> and the average growth of keep-up reefs is 6 mm a year.  Reefs with
>>> flats near the water surface presently would be considered keep-up
>>> reefs I would think, and thus reefs with shallow reef flats would be
>>> predicted to grow upward at an average of 6 mm a year, twice the
>>> present rate of sea level rise.  That is, if Montaggioni's review of
>>> the evidence is correct.  Those figures can't apply to reef flats,
>>> or else during periods of stable sea level, the reef flat would grow
>>> up into the air.  Surely they apply only to reef areas below low
>>> tide level.  I believe that he says that there is considerable
>>> variation between reefs in the rate that they grow, the 6 mm is only
>>> an average.  So a minority of keep-up reefs would grow at less than
>>> 3 mm a year.  Corals can clearly grow much faster than both sea
>>> level rise and the average rate of growth of a reef. Staghorns can
>>> grow 100 mm or more a year on their branch tips, massive Porites grow around 5-10 mm a year, but encrusting corals probably add very little to their thickness in a year.
>>> So it does make a big difference which kind of coral.  If most
>>> corals on reef flats can grow faster than present sea level rise, my
>>> guess is that higher coral cover with deepening water will lead to a
>>> faster reef growth rate.  But if such an effect exists, I don't know
>>> how big it might be, I don't know how much faster the reef flat
>>> could grow upward, though I'd predict that would depend on how much
>>> coral cover there is, and how fast that coral grows.  Local human
>>> impacts are indeed likely to slow coral and reef growth I would
>>> think, but there are lots of atolls with no people, and the longest
>>> fringing reef in the world, Ningaloo Reef, on the west coast of
>>> Australia, has almost no human impacts and the coast is a desert so little if any runoff.
>>>      But my main point that rising sea levels will lead to more
>>> coral cover on reef flats is supported by those two articles.
>>>      Coral growth is encouraged by water motion, up to the point at
>>> which skeletons start to break.  Most of the energy of a wave is
>>> dissipated where the wave breaks, which is usually on the crest.
>>> Thus, reef flats receive much less wave energy than the crest, and
>>> don't have the concussion from the falling wave, which I've read is
>>> the strongest force breaking skeletons.  For reefs with coral on the
>>> crest, increasing wave action on the reef flat should be good for
>>> corals, unless they are on unstable substrate such as rubble.  For
>>> reefs with only coralline algae on the crest, it might be that waves
>>> on the reef flat will break corals during the heaviest wave periods,
>>> such as during storms.  So for those reefs, I don't know what the
>>> net effect would be.  Could be that deeper water would allow more
>>> coral growth between storms, but storms would break the coral.  But
>>> for reefs with corals on the crest, increasing waves on the reef
>>> flat should help coral growth there.  Unless it is along a coast
>>> with lots of terrestrial sediment, which a good number of reefs have, but other reefs like atolls and Ningaloo Reef don't have.
>>>
>>> Cheers,  Doug
>>>
>>> Montaggioni, L.F. 2005. History of Indo-Pacific coral reef systems
>>> since the last glaciation: Development patterns and controlling factors.
>>> Earth-Science Reviews 71: 1-75.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 1:45 AM, Dennis Hubbard <
>>> dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Doug, Regarding your comments on SL rise, this conflates coral
>>>> growth and reef building. The work of Peter Davies, David Hopley
>>>> and others clearly showed that these reef flats broadened after
>>>> reef caught up with slowed (actually stable or falling) sea level
>>>> after 8 CalBP. The reefs built at their fastest rates after initial
>>>> start-up, but it is unclear whether this was a response of faster
>>>> sea-level rise or just the background accretion rate. In the
>>>> Caribbean, it is clear that reefs in 20+ m of water build just as
>>>> fast as those in 2-5 m of water. Our preliminary analyses of other
>>>> data suggest that this is  mimicked in other oceans. To me, the
>>>> fact that the depth-related patterns of coral growth is not
>>>> mirrored by reef building suggests that coral growth is a very poor
>>>> proxy for what will happen as accelerating sea level opens up
>>>> accommodation space atop reef flats. Very careful and thoughtful
>>>> studies have shown that even 20 cm of freeboard atop the reef crest
>>>> can more than double the wave energy normally filtered by the reef.
>>>> Also, increased storm intensity will dramatically increase export
>>>> from the ref proper (either across the reef flat in the GBS and the
>>>> Indo-Pacific or down-slope in the Caribbean. Reef building is a
>>>> complex process and coral growth, while providing the building
>>>> blocks, is a very small part of the total budget. Existing data on
>>>> reef building suggests that the present rate of sea-level rise is
>>>> faster than the Holocene accretion rates of more than half of the
>>>> reefs where coring has occurred (and this was with plenty of

>>>> available accommodation space).. Also, we must remember that this

>>>> was at a time before *Homo stupidus* was providing the myriad stresses that are common today. To me, it is not comforting to realize that so many reefs are already lagginf behind is the most optimistic picture available.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Dennis
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 6:04 PM, Douglas Fenner <
>>>> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>      I didn't notice the date of the article, Feb. 2012,
>>>>> initially, it is in such small, light print.  This article is not
>>>>> recent news.  Thanks to everybody for pointing out the article it
>>>>> was based on, and the informative comments.
>>>>>
>>>>>      My take on the Cooper 2012 Science article is that decreases
>>>>> in the rate of calcification had been reported in a previous paper
>>>>> based on GBR (Great Barrier Reef) data, and there had been
>>>>> speculation that it could indicate that acidification had begun to
>>>>> slow coral growth.  But the Cooper paper found that on the west
>>>>> coast of Australia, calcification had increased along with
>>>>> increasing temperatures, and increased most in the south where
>>>>> temperatures were lower and the increase greater.  So they
>>>>> conclude that the dominant effect at this point is the effect of
>>>>> warming temperatures, because increasing temperatures strongly
>>>>> increase the rate of calcification (and linear extension, the main
>>>>> contributor to calcification).  They explain the GBR result as
>>>>> likely being due to the GBR having reached higher temperatures at
>>>>> which growth may begin to slow, or due to decreased growth there
>>>>> due to bleaching.
>>>>>
>>>>> Articles have previously documented that massive *Porites* corals
>>>>> growth
>>>>>
>>>>> rate increases with temperature.  Such as in:
>>>>>
>>>>> Lough, J.M.  2008.  Coral calcification from skeletal records revisited.
>>>>> Marine Ecology Progress Series 373: 257-264.  Figure 2b shows
>>>>> skeletal extension rate increasing with increasing temperature.
>>>>> Figure 2a shows skeletal density decreasing with increasing
>>>>> temperature, and Figure 2c shows calcification increasing with
>>>>> temperature. The range of annual average sea temperature was 23-29.5 C.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v373/p257-264/   open access
>>>>>
>>>>> People do tend to assume that all effects of climate change and
>>>>> global warming will be negative.  Not true, I would argue.  For
>>>>> instance, melting Arctic sea ice will make ship navigation there
>>>>> possible, with likely economic benefits.  It may also make
>>>>> drilling for oil in the Arctic ocean easier, with all of the
>>>>> possible effects on economics and the environment.
>>>>> Also, people often say that rising sea levels will hurt reefs.
>>>>> Indeed, where there are soft terrestrial sediments, increased wave
>>>>> action due to less friction with the substrate in the deeper water
>>>>> on reef flats will mobilize sediment and negatively impact corals.
>>>>> But where there is no such sediment, like on atolls, more water
>>>>> depth allows more coral growth on reef flats.  There are a lot of
>>>>> atolls, and reef flats around the world have about 6 times the
>>>>> area of reef slopes, so that's not a minor consideration, though
>>>>> sea level rise of 3 mm a year is way slower than most corals can
>>>>> grow, so corals will likely hit the surface and be limited anyhow.
>>>>> Plus,
>>>>> once mass coral bleaching kills them, they won't be growing any more.
>>>>> So a
>>>>> temporary positive effect.  References listed at the end of this
>>>>> message.
>>>>>
>>>>>      Another paper adds some perspective:
>>>>>
>>>>> Wooldridge, S. A.  2014.  Assessing coral health and resilience in
>>>>> a warming ocean: why looks can be deceptive.  BioEssays 36(11): 1041-1049.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201400074/abstract
>>>>> (not
>>>>> open access, click on "author information" to get the author's
>>>>> email
>>>>> address)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> He writes in the abstract, "In this paper I challenge the notion
>>>>> that a healthy and resilient coral is (in all cases) a
>>>>> fast-growing coral, and by inference, that a reef characterised by
>>>>> a fast trajectory toward high coral cover is necessarily a healthy
>>>>> and resilient reef." and "Moreover, it explains the somewhat
>>>>>
>>>>> paradoxical scenario, whereby at the ecological instant before the
>>>>> reef-building capacity of the symbiosis is lost, a reef can look
>>>>> visually at its best and be accreting CaCO3 at its maximum."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In general, I believe it is the case with most poikilothermic or
>>>>> ectodermic animals, that as temperature rises, metabolism
>>>>> increases, gradually and reversibly, up to a point.  Above that
>>>>> point, it decreases, precipitously and irreversibly.  Corals are
>>>>> no different.  The two processes are quite different, the
>>>>> precipitous drop at high temperatures is due to the denaturing of
>>>>> proteins primarily, I would think, and it leads to death.  In
>>>>> other words, for any animal, indeed any organism, if the
>>>>> temperatures gets too high, they get cooked and die.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> So increasing temperatures seem great, but beyond a certain point
>>>>> are lethal.  The problem for corals is that in many places, they
>>>>> live close to their upper thermal limit in the summer, and global
>>>>> temperatures are increasing.  In places where they live well below
>>>>> their thermal maximum, temperature increases may not be a threat,
>>>>> and increase growth rates, which seems good.  Mind you, much of
>>>>> the threat doesn't come directly from gradually increasing
>>>>> temperatures, it comes from hot water events, such as the 1998 El
>>>>> Nino event that killed about 16% of the world's corals.
>>>>> Such
>>>>> events can push even corals in cooler water over their limits,
>>>>> since their limits tend to be lower, usually just a couple degrees
>>>>> above the local mean summer high temperature.  Janice Lough tells
>>>>> me that the corals on the west coast of Australia bleached in
>>>>> 2011, 1-2 years after they collected their coral cores.  The high
>>>>> temperature of El Nino events and the like, are on top of the
>>>>> gradually warming baseline, so as the baseline goes up, the peak
>>>>> event temperatures go up as well (though they vary greatly
>>>>> depending on the strength of the El Nino) and thus likely the
>>>>> damage.  If I remember, the maps of where coral bleaching on the
>>>>> GBR occurred in the major events of
>>>>> 1998 and 2002, didn't show that they only bleached at the northern
>>>>> end, they bleached at the southern end too (where average water
>>>>> temperatures are lower).  In fact, they bleached more at the
>>>>> southern end than the northern end, judging from Fig. 2 in the
>>>>> following article:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Berkelmans, R., De’ath, G., Kininmonth, S. & Skirving,W. J. 2004 A
>>>>> comparison of the 1998 and 2002 coral bleaching events on the
>>>>> Great Barrier
>>>>> Reef: spatial correlation, patterns and predictions. Coral Reefs
>>>>> 23, 74–83.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>      The Cooper paper says in the next to last paragraph that "The
>>>>> influence of ocean acidification is expected to occur first at
>>>>> higher latitudes that inherently have lower seawater saturation
>>>>> states with respect to
>>>>>
>>>>> carbonate minerals due to their increased solubility at lower
>>>>> water temperatures (10, 30)."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The following paper predicts that while bleaching will degrade
>>>>> corals in the future mainly at low latitudes, acidification will
>>>>> degrade them at high latitudes, and so there is no latitude that
>>>>> offers a refuge from climate
>>>>> change:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> van Hooidonk R, Maynard JA, Manzello D, Planes S (2014) Opposite
>>>>> latitudinal gradients in projected ocean acidification and
>>>>> bleaching impacts on coral reefs. Global Change Biology, 20, 103–112.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12394/abstract   Not
>>>>> open
>>>>> access, but click on author information for the author's email address..
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,  Doug
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Fenner, D.  2012.  Reef flat growth: comment on “Rising sea level
>>>>> may cause decline of fringing coral reefs.”  EOS 93 (23): 218.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Brown, B. E., R. P. Dunne, N. Phongsuwan, and P. J. Somerfield
>>>>> (2011), Increased sea level promotes coral cover on shallow reef

>>>>> flats in the Andaman Sea, eastern Indian Ocean, Coral Reefs, 30, 867–878..

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Scopélitis, J., S. Andréfouët, S. Phinn, T. Done, and P.. Chabanet
>>>>> (2011), Coral colonization of a shallow reef flat in response to
>>>>> rising sea
>>>>> level:
>>>>> Quantification from 35 years of remote sensing data at Heron
>>>>> Island, Australia, Coral Reefs, 30, 951–965.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Vecsei, A. 2004. A new estimate of global reefal carbonate
>>>>> production including the fore-reefs. Global and Planetary Change 43:1-18.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Eugene Shinn <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
>>>>>   wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Listers, Here is a report of work done by coral scientists in
>>>>> Australia
>>>>>> readers might want to reassess. Gene
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/study-finds-co
>>>>> ral-reef-growth-thrives-in-warmer-waters/story-e6frg8y6-1226261278
>>>>> 615
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
>>>>>> ------------------------------------
>>>>> -----------------------------------
>>>>>> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
>>>>>> University of South Florida
>>>>>> College of Marine Science Room 221A
>>>>>> 140 Seventh Avenue South
>>>>>> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
>>>>>> <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
>>>>>> Tel 727 553-1158
>>>>>> ----------------------------------
>>>>>> -----------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 6:23 AM, Greg Challenger <
>>>>> GChallenger at polarisappliedsciences.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Below is a link to the paper.  I don't believe there is any
>>>>>> longer any doubt that media outlets have agendas on all sides.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The researchers found both decreases and increases in Porites
>>>>>> growth
>>>>> with
>>>>>> no widespread pattern.  They did find contradictory evidence of
>>>>> increasing
>>>>>> growth in higher latitudes.  I didn't get into the power or
>>>>> significance.
>>>>>> It is not shocking to learn that ranges can change as a result of
>>>>> physical
>>>>>> forcing, even if contradictory.  The study involves one size
>>>>>> class of
>>>>> a
>>>>>> single species (Porites) and doesn't speak to diversity as far as
>>>>>> can
>>>>> be
>>>>>> discerned from the abstract.   As always, there are likely winners and
>>>>>> losers when it comes to change.  It doesn't surprise me that
>>>>>> massive Porites lobata may be doing well because we find it in
>>>>>> the most
>>>>> polluted of
>>>>>> industrial harbors doing quite well throughout the Indo-Pacific
>>>>>> and
>>>>> Red
>>>>>> Sea.  There was an in situ test (accident) that I cannot mention
>>>>>> that removed oxygen from a certain harbor for a number of days
>>>>>> and many
>>>>> members
>>>>>> of this species survived while some others did not.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of the better Elkhorn Stands I have seen in recent years in
>>>>>> the Caribbean was recently removed from the entrance of Kingston
>>>>>> Harbor
>>>>> to make
>>>>>> way for Post Panamex Vessels in some of the dirtier water I care
>>>>>> to
>>>>> swim
>>>>>> in, while some of the most recently devastated elkhorn I have
>>>>>> seen
>>>>> was 100
>>>>>> miles offshore in the Silver Banks, D.R., both within the past
>>>>>> few
>>>>> years.
>>>>>>    I'm not sure we've got our fingers on the pulse of this thing,
>>>>>> which makes it more challenging to convey a sense of urgency to
>>>>>> the
>>>>> public.  I
>>>>>> usually ask for examples of positive ecological outcomes from
>>>>> unintended
>>>>>> consequences of man and then I might worry less.  I'm still
>>>>>> waiting
>>>>> for
>>>>>> some of those examples.
>>>>>> ____________________________
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Growth of Western Australian Corals in the Anthropocene, Science
>>>>>> 3 February 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6068 pp. 593-596. DOI:
>>>>> 10.1126/science.1214570
>>>>>>   Read more at:
>>>>>>
>>>>> http://phys.org/news/2012-02-coral-growth-western-australia-warmer
>>>>> .html#jCp
>>>>>> -
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Abstract
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anthropogenic increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide lead to
>>>>>> warmer
>>>>> sea
>>>>>> surface temperatures and altered ocean chemistry. Experimental
>>>>> evidence
>>>>>> suggests that coral calcification decreases as aragonite
>>>>>> saturation
>>>>> drops
>>>>>> but increases as temperatures rise toward thresholds optimal for
>>>>>> coral growth. In situ studies have documented alarming recent
>>>>>> declines in calcification rates on several tropical coral reef
>>>>>> ecosystems. We show there is no widespread pattern of consistent
>>>>>> decline in calcification
>>>>> rates
>>>>>> of massive Porites during the 20th century on reefs spanning an
>>>>>> 11° latitudinal range in the southeast Indian Ocean off Western Australia.
>>>>>> Increasing calcification rates on the high-latitude reefs
>>>>>> contrast
>>>>> with the
>>>>>> downward trajectory reported for corals on Australia's Great
>>>>>> Barrier
>>>>> Reef
>>>>>> and provide additional evidence that recent changes in coral
>>>>> calcification
>>>>>> are responses to temperature rather than ocean acidification.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:
>>>>>> coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Tim
>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 7:49 AM
>>>>>> To: Eugene Shinn
>>>>>> Cc: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> list
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Reassessing Coral Reef Scientists
>>>>>>
>>>>>> .......more on "The Australian" newspaper.....
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Instead of engaging their vast resources to help finance genuine
>>>>> marine
>>>>>> research, and using some of their influence to drive corporate
>>>>>> accountability, particularly in "developing" economies, the paper
>>>>>> specialises in selective editing of scientific papers and
>>>>>> peddling
>>>>> their
>>>>>> own business agenda.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Some of us familiar with the Maldives, take exception to News
>>>>>> Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch's disheartening comments at the
>>>>>> newspaper's
>>>>> 50th
>>>>>> anniversary last year.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> He said climate change should be treated with "much scepticism".
>>>>>> If the temperature rises 3 degrees in 100 years, "at the very
>>>>>> most
>>>>> one of
>>>>>> those [degrees] would be man-made," he said.
>>>>>> "If the sea level rises six inches, that's a big deal in the
>>>>>> world,
>>>>> the
>>>>>> Maldives might disappear or something, but OK, we can't mitigate
>>>>> that, we
>>>>>> can't stop it, we have to stop building vast houses on seashores".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Perhaps we should all give up, like drowned reefs, on reading his
>>>>>> papers......
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/fight-climat
>>>>> e-change-by-building-away-from-sea-rupert-murdoch-20140713-zt66s.h
>>>>> tml#ixzz37oiOo25z
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 8 Apr 2015, at 16:31, Osmar Luiz wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For those who were not familiar with "The Australian" newspaper
>>>>> points
>>>>>> of view and its strong right-wing trend, some quotes below from
>>>>>> The Wilkpedia...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> According to other commentators, however, the newspaper "is
>>>>> generally
>>>>>>> conservative in tone and heavily oriented toward business; it
>>>>>>> has a range of columnists of varying political persuasions but
>>>>>>> mostly to
>>>>> the
>>>>>>> right."[9] Its former editor Paul Kelly has stated that "The
>>>>>>> Australian has established itself in the marketplace as a
>>>>>>> newspaper that strongly supports economic libertarianism".[10]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In September 2010, the ABC's Media Watch presenter Paul Barry,
>>>>> accused
>>>>>>> The Australian of waging a campaign against the Australian
>>>>>>> Greens,
>>>>> and
>>>>>>> the Green's federal leader Bob Brown wrote that The Australian
>>>>>>> has "stepped out of the fourth estate by seeing itself as a
>>>>>>> determinant
>>>>> of
>>>>>>> democracy in Australia". In response, The Australian opined that
>>>>>>> "Greens leader Bob Brown has accused The Australian of trying to
>>>>> wreck
>>>>>>> the alliance between the Greens and Labor. We wear Senator
>>>>>>> Brown's criticism with pride. We believe he and his Green
>>>>>>> colleagues are hypocrites; that they are bad for the nation; and
>>>>>>> that they should
>>>>> be
>>>>>>> destroyed at the ballot box."[12]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 8 Apr 2015, at 6:46 am, Eugene Shinn
>>>>>>> <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Listers, Here is a report of work done by coral scientists in
>>>>>>>> Australia readers might want to reassess. Gene
>>>>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/study-finds-co
>>>>> ral
>>>>>>>> -reef-growth-thrives-in-warmer-waters/story-e6frg8y6-1226261278
>>>>>>>> 615
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------
>>>>>>>> -----------------------------------
>>>>>>>> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor University of South Florida
>>>>>>>> College of Marine Science Room 221A
>>>>>>>> 140 Seventh Avenue South
>>>>>>>> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
>>>>>>>> <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
>>>>>>>> Tel 727 553-1158
>>>>>>>> ----------------------------------
>>>>>>>> -----------------------------------
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> 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
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Douglas Fenner
>>>>> Contractor with Ocean Associates, Inc.
>>>>> PO Box 7390
>>>>> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>>>>>
>>>>> phone 1 684 622-7084
>>>>>
>>>>> "belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."
>>>>>
>>>>> Politics, science, and public attitudes: What we're learning, and
>>>>> why it matters.  Science Insider, open access.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://news.sciencemag.org/social-sciences/2015/02/politics-scienc
>>>>> e-and-public-attitudes-what-we-re-learning-and-why-it-matters?utm_
>>>>> campaign=email-news-latest&utm_src=email
>>>>>
>>>>> Homeopathy ineffective, study confirms.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://news.sciencemag.org/sifter/2015/03/homeopathy-ineffective-s
>>>>> tudy-confirms
>>>>>
>>>>> website:  http://independent.academia.edu/DouglasFenner
>>>>>
>>>>> blog: http://ocean.si.edu/blog/reefs-american-samoa-story-hope
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Coral-List mailing list
>>>>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>>>>> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Dennis Hubbard
>>>> Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
>>>> (440) 775-8346
>>>>
>>>> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
>>>>   Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Douglas Fenner
>>> Contractor with Ocean Associates, Inc.
>>> PO Box 7390
>>> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>>>
>>> phone 1 684 622-7084
>>>
>>> "belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."
>>>
>>> Politics, science, and public attitudes: What we're learning, and
>>> why it matters.  Science Insider, open access.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://news.sciencemag.org/social-sciences/2015/02/politics-science-
>>> and-public-attitudes-what-we-re-learning-and-why-it-matters?utm_camp
>>> aign=email-news-latest&utm_src=email
>>>
>>> Homeopathy ineffective, study confirms.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://news.sciencemag.org/sifter/2015/03/homeopathy-ineffective-stu
>>> dy-confirms
>>>

>>> website:  http://independent.academia.edu/DouglasFenner
>>>
>>> blog: http://ocean.si.edu/blog/reefs-american-samoa-story-hope
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Dennis Hubbard
>> Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
>> (440) 775-8346
>>
>> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
>>   Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
>>
>
>


---
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-- 

Douglas Fenner
Contractor with Ocean Associates, Inc.
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

phone 1 684 622-7084

"belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."

 

Politics, science, and public attitudes: What we're learning, and why it matters.  Science Insider, open access.

 

 <http://news.sciencemag.org/social-sciences/2015/02/politics-science-and-public-attitudes-what-we-re-learning-and-why-it-matters?utm_campaign=email-news-latest&utm_src=email> http://news.sciencemag.org/social-sciences/2015/02/politics-science-and-public-attitudes-what-we-re-learning-and-why-it-matters?utm_campaign=email-news-latest&utm_src=email

 

Homeopathy ineffective, study confirms.

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/sifter/2015/03/homeopathy-ineffective-study-confirms


website:  http://independent.academia.edu/DouglasFenner

blog: http://ocean.si.edu/blog/reefs-american-samoa-story-hope



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