[Coral-List] study says ocean life can be saved by 2050

Tue Apr 14 23:20:41 UTC 2020

I've read the article now, and think it is more reasonable than I had
guessed it would be.  If we are going to get out of the mess we are in,
we're going to have to make more changes.  The article highlights
successes, not everything is failure.  I've pointed out before that air
pollution in many places has been reduced from lethal levels, and the
places with the worst levels in recent years are in a race to reduce them
as well  People don't like being poisoned.  The article does not ignore
that decline of coral reefs and the major hits that reefs are taking, it
points out that coral reefs and plastics are two areas where things are
clearly getting worse, not better.  It also says something about "reef
restoration."   I'd like to quote:

" Rebuilding coral reefs carries the highest risk of failure (Table1), as
cumulative pressures (for example, overfishing and pollution) that drove
their historical decline are now increasingly compounded by warming-induced
bleaching11,12. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
projects that global warming to 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels will
result in very high risks and losses of coral reefs13 unless adaptation
occurs faster than currently anticipated. A recent study13 shows that while
coral bleaching has increased in frequency and intensity in the last
decade, the onset of coral bleaching is now occurring at significantly
warmer temperatures (around 0.5 °C) than previously, suggesting that the
remaining coral populations now have a higher thermal threshold for
bleaching, due to a decline in thermally vulnerable species and genotypes
and/or acclimatization128. However, the capacity to restore coral reefs
lags behind that of all other marine habitats, because coral-reef
restoration efforts typically have a very small footprint, and are
expensive and slow104. Coral restoration often fails because the original
causes of mortality remain unchecked, and despite decades of effort (Fig.
2), only tens of hectares have been regrown so far. Our growing knowledge
of ecological processes in coral reefs provides opportunities to catalyse
recovery by reducing multiple pressures while repairing key processes,
including herbivory and larval recruitment11,111. Mitigating the drivers of
coral loss, particularly climate change, and developing innovative
approaches to restoration within this decade are imperative to revert coral
losses at scale110,111. Efforts are underway to find corals that are
resistant to the temperatures and acidity levels expected by the end of the
twenty-first century, to understand the mechanisms of their resistance and
to use ‘assisted evolution’ to engineer these characteristics into other
corals110,111. However, these efforts are in their infancy and their
benefits currently unproven.  Overall, the societal benefits that would
accrue from substantially rebuilding marine life by 2050 will depend on the
mitigation of green-house gas emissions and on the development of efficient
CO2 capture and removal technologies to meet or, preferably, exceed the
targets of the Paris Agreement."

   That appears at the end of "overcoming the climate change roadblock"
section in the paper is you would like to find it.

     Thoughts??    Cheers,  Doug

On Mon, Apr 13, 2020 at 5:28 PM Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I found that you can read this article for free, but not download it at
> the following website:
>
>
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2146-7.epdf?referrer_access_token=amDDSAkaOZHGehfvwUm6VtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MK-96gIoT7PzGwnWfT0ZW3la7U08bmT-Ij_9JkZ-oehDjTZhssXq3b_5j3VyEoTsJ6xuIuYop56JAoGqbnGFFWSKdFwcGjNDxr4Hjz-MrGQupY7OKV-kwW26a5UHhNvDd4VI5dOEpzK_khXVzpN4f9dknPrOsakxtQO68JVO6pXO7ImkGP-ruSmHDdorRPnBam7Eqxg6iWwSbyW9r777ZCcMO5QByChlIDi-Z0JUI4bmsH9CTpHjmumFS0mFvA8oQ%3D&tracking_referrer=news.mongabay.com
>
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 11:19 AM Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Landmark study concludes marine life can be rebuilt by 2050
>>
>>
>> https://phys.org/news/2020-04-landmark-marine-life-rebuilt.html?fbclid=IwAR2lWwLl20NbYkZ-VrLUW3v0V1PysZjcFzcYRu8w4N3TeQSITIOm-_Pvg1Q
>>
>>
>> Open access.
>>
>> "  A key element identified for success is the mitigation of climate
>> change by reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Impacts from realized
>> and unavoidable climate change already limit the scope for rebuilding
>> tropical corals to a partial—rather than substantial—recovery. The goal of
>> rebuilding the abundance of marine life can only succeed if the most
>> ambitious goals within the Paris Agreement are reached."
>>
>> Rebuilding marine Life.  Nature 580, 39-51.  2020
>>
>>    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2146-7
>>
>> Not open access.  See author information.
>>
>> Cheers,  Doug
>>
>> --
>> Douglas Fenner
>> Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
>> NOAA Fisheries Service
>> Pacific Islands Regional Office
>> Honolulu
>> and:
>> Consultant
>> PO Box 7390
>> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>>
>> "Already, more people die  <http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml>from
>> heat-related causes in the U.S. than from all other extreme weather events
>> ."
>>
>> https://www.npr.org/2018/07/09/624643780/phoenix-tries-to-reverse-its-silent-storm-of-heat-deaths
>>
>>
>> Even 50-year old climate models correctly predicted global warmng
>>
>> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2019-12-06&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=3113276
>>
>> "Global warming is manifestly the foremost current threat to coral reefs,
>> and must be addressed by the global community if reefs as we know them will
>> have any chance to persist."  Williams et al, 2019, Frontiers in Marine
>> Science
>>
>>
>
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
> NOAA Fisheries Service
> Pacific Islands Regional Office
> Honolulu
> and:
> Consultant
> PO Box 7390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>
> "Already, more people die  <http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml>from
> heat-related causes in the U.S. than from all other extreme weather events
> ."
>
> https://www.npr.org/2018/07/09/624643780/phoenix-tries-to-reverse-its-silent-storm-of-heat-deaths
>
>
> Even 50-year old climate models correctly predicted global warmng
>
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2019-12-06&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=3113276
>
> "Global warming is manifestly the foremost current threat to coral reefs,
> and must be addressed by the global community if reefs as we know them will
> have any chance to persist."  Williams et al, 2019, Frontiers in Marine
> Science
>
>

-- 
Douglas Fenner
Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

"mitigating climate change is the critical wedge to set coral reefs on a
recovery trajectory"  Duarte et al 2020 Rebuilding marine life Nature

"Already, more people die  <http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml>from
heat-related causes in the U.S. than from all other extreme weather events."

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/09/624643780/phoenix-tries-to-reverse-its-silent-storm-of-heat-deaths

Even 50-year old climate models correctly predicted global warmng
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2019-12-06&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=3113276

"Global warming is manifestly the foremost current threat to coral reefs,
and must be addressed by the global community if reefs as we know them will
have any chance to persist."  Williams et al, 2019, Frontiers in Marine
Science