[Coral-List] Evidence that ocean warming has caused most Caribbean coral loss

[Pedro M Alcolado]

I support  Steve. We have to try to avoid to dilute srong existing
evidence of impact of climate change, with  fragmentary arguments
that indeed conduct to anything and provide support to those that
claim that there is not enough evidence of climate impact on coral
reefs, just when urgent strong actions have to be promoted with strong
vested political and economic interest with no evidence. We have to
hold a precautionary approach and to unite on our solid arguments,
instead of mentioning particularities or exceptional cases. Sorry for
my imperfect English.
Best,
Pedro

On 4/26/17, Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Dear John and Mike,
>
> I ask this respectfully,  don't you both (as well as the vast majority of
> your colleagues) ultimately arrive at the same conclusion?
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but regardless of how we got here, don't you agree
> that it is ocean warming that now represents the consummate threat?   I may
> be interpreting things incorrectly, but It seems to me that at this point we
> need a unified message reflecting the urgency of addressing this particular
> issue.
>
> At the same time we can all remain supportive of the various efforts aimed
> at addressing local stressors.
>
> Regards,
> Steve
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Apr 25, 2017, at 8:50 AM, Bruno, John <jbruno at unc.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Mike, thank you for your ongoing interest in this topic and my post..
>>
>> "the Caribbean had already lost more than half its reefs before water
>> temperatures had increased by more than a fraction of a degree”
>>
>> This is a common misconception from folks unaware that global warming
>> began many decades ago. Please have a look at the NOAA data plotted in
>> this figure from my post:
>> http://theseamonster.net/2017/04/caribbean-bleaching/nclimate2915-f4/  Or
>> the graphics in Kuffner et al 2014 below it. These data should sort you
>> out. The Caribbean had clearly warmed significantly by the time mean coral
>> cover had been roughly halved (around the mid-1980s). Also, we haven’t
>> lost any reefs yet, what we’ve lost is coral cover (and fish biomass).
>>
>> Iv’e dove near Havana and I agree - its a mess and was probably locally
>> impacted. And I don’t understand the logic in arguing managers should give
>> up because climate change has had significant impacts on corals.. I’ve
>> said it a million times: local impacts need to be mitigated. We all agree
>> on that. I think you’re underestimating managers and local conservation
>> capacity. (All the managers I know acknowledge climate change but aren’t
>> giving up). As the Ocean Optimism symposium highlighted over the weekend,
>> local successes are realistic and very much meaningful and worthwhile.
>>
>> "and there is overwhelming evidence of land-based stress going back to the
>> 70’s”
>>
>> You have been promising this list-serv these references for years now. If
>> you ever find them, please do share with us if you have the time.
>>
>> "how well could coral reefs survive ocean warming if they were not already
>> stressed by [local] human impacts?”
>>
>> That experiment has been run dozens of times. On the northern GBR, on
>> Scott Reef, off Southern Cuba or in the Bahamas, across the central
>> Pacific, etc.. The answer is not well at all.
>>
>> The reason is that local impacts do not appear to act synergistically with
>> ocean warming. As Cote and Darling suggested
>> (http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1000438),
>> the interaction appears to be antagonistic, not synergistic. Either that
>> or the impact of warming is so much stronger that it swamps the local and
>> synergistic signals. Also see Darling et al 2010: htt
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list