State of Climate Science!

[sigurdur]

Gosh, Code....NO one would make a movie abt something like this would they?

[sigurdur]

cnsnews.com/commentary/hans-bader/court-orders-wh-ostp-release-records-related-claim-global-warming-causes

A potential explanation for all this is that OSTP’s Polar Vortex video was originally produced and posted not as the personal opinion of the agency’s director, but as an agency project. OSTP sought, and succeeded, in getting widespread news coverage for the film. But once its inaccuracy became clear, it seems the agency invoked the personal opinion excuse as a way of avoiding accountability, and it did its best to maintain that façade even if it meant going through time-consuming and expensive litigation.

[sigurdur]

www.investors.com/politics/editorials/another-climate-alarmist-admits-real-motive-behind-warming-scare/

[phydeaux2363]

www.wsj.com/articles/bleaching-devastates-great-barrier-reef-1459231970

I saw this in the WSJ yesterday. The authors claim the apocalypse is upon us. I did some quick and dirty research on the interweb and almost every article I could find on the topic for the last ten years places the cause squarely on increasing ocean temperatures as a result of AGW. Have any of y'all seen anything that discusses other possible reasons, or explains the current phenomena as a possible natural variation? Appreciate the help.

[sigurdur]

phydeaux2363:

It is a stretch to associate increased ocean temps to CO2. Physics is still physics!

There may be a slight increase because of wave action, but the overall actual effect of long wave radiation increasing OHC has to be very small.

Back to the SW radiation thing, potentially tied into the IRIS effect that Prof Lindzen wrote a paper about years ago.

There "may" be some effect, as warmer air temps results in less clouds, which allows more SW radiation to penetrate the oceans.

[acidohm]

Mar 30, 2016 15:59:17 GMT phydeaux2363 said:

www.wsj.com/articles/bleaching-devastates-great-barrier-reef-1459231970

I saw this in the WSJ yesterday. The authors claim the apocalypse is upon us. I did some quick and dirty research on the interweb and almost every article I could find on the topic for the last ten years places the cause squarely on increasing ocean temperatures as a result of AGW. Have any of y'all seen anything that discusses other possible reasons, or explains the current phenomena as a possible natural variation? Appreciate the help.

wattsupwiththat.com/?s=coral+bleaching

Take your pick of possible alternatives.......

[phydeaux2363]

Thanks, Mr. Acid. I should have thought to look there. Interesting that none of the articles show up on a Google search for "coral bleaching" until well past the 10th page.

[acidohm]

Heaven forbid any 'off message' alternatives should be easily accessible to the public!!

If the whispers are allowed to gain in strength, one day they will be a roar

[missouriboy]

Mar 30, 2016 19:12:16 GMT acidohm said:

Mar 30, 2016 15:59:17 GMT phydeaux2363 said:

www.wsj.com/articles/bleaching-devastates-great-barrier-reef-1459231970

I saw this in the WSJ yesterday. The authors claim the apocalypse is upon us. I did some quick and dirty research on the interweb and almost every article I could find on the topic for the last ten years places the cause squarely on increasing ocean temperatures as a result of AGW. Have any of y'all seen anything that discusses other possible reasons, or explains the current phenomena as a possible natural variation? Appreciate the help.

wattsupwiththat.com/?s=coral+bleaching

Take your pick of possible alternatives.......

Just back from a week in sunny, beautiful Puerto Rico ... and catching up on posts since I left.  And coral reefs are a topic near and
dear to my heart.  Very nice find Acidohm.  You've given me some new reading material.  I am attaching a link with a brief synopsis
of multiple traumatic coral-diversity events in the geologic record.  Forget the AGW mantra as they are plugging their own fund-raising
agenda.  The point being that corals have been around for a very long time and have survived environmental traumas of likely much
greater magnitude than today.  globalreefproject.com/technical-publications-coral-reef-history.php

Coral reefs are amazingly productive ecosystems best developed (at least today) in the low-nutrient environments of the tropical oceans.
Corals provide the vertical structure rising from hard substrate where a huge diversity of organisms find shelter and food.  While corals
capture food from the currents, it is the symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae, which are hosted in their tissues that provide 
a large portion of their energy.  Fleshy algae, which compete with corals for space, are kept in check by the low-nutrient environment
and the constant grazing of herbivorous fishes.  High-temperature events (relative to usual) appears to cause the corals to expel
the algae.  If continued for long periods this can cause coral polyp deaths.  However, based on my reading and visual observations,
it is proximity to people, their effluents and activities that create the greatest damage.  Besides physical crushing of their structures
from anchors, trampling and groundings, over-fishing and the introduction of nutrients (sewage, fertilizer, etc) alter the balance between
corals and fleshy algae, allowing the later to outproduce and overgrow the former.  In the 1990s a wave of disease ravaged many of
the Caribbean reefs.  In my snorkeling and diving travels over this period, I watched relatively healthy reefs literally stripped of their
living organisms to white, carbonate skeletal remains.  USGS scientists did a series of studies that seemed to implicate the contents
of dust clouds originating out of Africa in this event.  Whether partially of human origin or merely a cyclical event has never, to my
knowledge, been determined.  Also in the 1990s, when I worked in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, I had the opportunity to explore the Red
Sea coastline.  The fringing reefs were spectacular ... and these were located in one of the warmest oceanic water bodies on Earth.
Also one of the lowest in terms of organic nutrients AND distance from people.  I was forced to conclude that it may not be the
water temperature, but dramatic changes that induce stress, which, in an otherwise healthy population, will pass.

The prophets of doom will continue to pontificate.  It's what they do.  And corals will continue to do what they do.  After all, they
have been around for a lot longer than we have.  If you want to save a coral reef, stop uncontrolled commercial fishing.

[acidohm]

Welcome back Mboy!! I snorkeled reefs off the cancun coast 13 years ago, these were also in a sorry state although it would be hard to point to contaminated runoff as there is so little agriculture.
It however sad to see these huge ghosts of what one can imagine to be vibrant and colourful in the past. It is easy to see why people get emotional about such things.

[nautonnier]

Apr 6, 2016 17:03:10 GMT acidohm said:

Welcome back Mboy!! I snorkeled reefs off the cancun coast 13 years ago, these were also in a sorry state although it would be hard to point to contaminated runoff as there is so little agriculture.
It however sad to see these huge ghosts of what one can imagine to be vibrant and colourful in the past. It is easy to see why people get emotional about such things.

The North Sea and Atlantic around the British Isles has a lot of coral not quite as colorful. But the trawlers spend all their time destroying it. However, as pictures of divers swimming with haddock and plaice doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi as bikinis and clown fish nobody seems to care too much.

[icefisher]

Apr 6, 2016 17:42:46 GMT nautonnier said:

Apr 6, 2016 17:03:10 GMT acidohm said:

Welcome back Mboy!! I snorkeled reefs off the cancun coast 13 years ago, these were also in a sorry state although it would be hard to point to contaminated runoff as there is so little agriculture.
It however sad to see these huge ghosts of what one can imagine to be vibrant and colourful in the past. It is easy to see why people get emotional about such things.

The North Sea and Atlantic around the British Isles has a lot of coral not quite as colorful. But the trawlers spend all their time destroying it. However, as pictures of divers swimming with haddock and plaice doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi as bikinis and clown fish nobody seems to care too much.

yep bottom trawling is probably the most destructive of practices in commercial fishing. However, one has to be careful in distinguishing between trawlers that literally drag the bottom of the ocean from mid-water trawlers that supply huge amounts of seafood to consumers without doing the damage associated with bottom draggers.

Corals can bleach out from rapid temperature change events either cooling or warming and coral bleaching has little, if not nothing, to do with fishing.

[missouriboy]

Apr 6, 2016 17:03:10 GMT acidohm said:

Welcome back Mboy!! I snorkeled reefs off the cancun coast 13 years ago, these were also in a sorry state although it would be hard to point to contaminated runoff as there is so little agriculture.
It however sad to see these huge ghosts of what one can imagine to be vibrant and colourful in the past. It is easy to see why people get emotional about such things.

In the late 80s and early 90s, the Caribbean reefs were still pretty special.  But this was in the eyes of a newcomer to
the ocean, who had not seen them when they were really pristine.  All the old folks who had grown up on the reefs talked
of the days when the reefs were teeming with fish and nobody who could swim ever went without a meal.  Over the years,
those stocks were depleted by rapidly expanding populations and hoards of tourists feeding at the local restaurants and 
commercial fishermen selling into the foreign fish markets.  More and more of the literature is documenting that the 
health of the reefs and the fish are interdependent.  Interestingly, the best preserved reef system in the western hemisphere
is said to lie off the south coast of Cuba, where Castro (who apparently was an avid scuba diver) banned commercial fishing
and limited tourist entries to 1000 people per year.  Research suggests that these reefs did not succumb to the diseases
that swept through most of the rest of the Caribbean in the 90s.  Coincidence??? 

[sigurdur]

Naw, Castro is like Cruz. He has a direct link to God.

[icefisher]

Apr 6, 2016 20:52:39 GMT missouriboy said:

Apr 6, 2016 17:03:10 GMT acidohm said:

Welcome back Mboy!! I snorkeled reefs off the cancun coast 13 years ago, these were also in a sorry state although it would be hard to point to contaminated runoff as there is so little agriculture.
It however sad to see these huge ghosts of what one can imagine to be vibrant and colourful in the past. It is easy to see why people get emotional about such things.

In the late 80s and early 90s, the Caribbean reefs were still pretty special.  But this was in the eyes of a newcomer to
the ocean, who had not seen them when they were really pristine.  All the old folks who had grown up on the reefs talked
of the days when the reefs were teeming with fish and nobody who could swim ever went without a meal.  Over the years,
those stocks were depleted by rapidly expanding populations and hoards of tourists feeding at the local restaurants and 
commercial fishermen selling into the foreign fish markets.  More and more of the literature is documenting that the 
health of the reefs and the fish are interdependent.  Interestingly, the best preserved reef system in the western hemisphere
is said to lie off the south coast of Cuba, where Castro (who apparently was an avid scuba diver) banned commercial fishing
and limited tourist entries to 1000 people per year.  Research suggests that these reefs did not succumb to the diseases
that swept through most of the rest of the Caribbean in the 90s.  Coincidence??? 

Coincidence? Maybe. Lets put it this way. . . .much of what passes for ecosystem science is quite akin to climate science.

The idea that healthy ecosystems with abundant populations of marine sea life at all trophic levels in the ecosystem is beneficial to the ecosystem, in general, is a good idea. Overfishing has been a problem in some areas and for some species of fish. In general, for US waters a large number of local movements resulted in public initiatives that put bans on commercial fishing gears blamed for excessive bycatch or habitat damage. Then in 1996 the Sustainable Fisheries Act was passed by Congress and signed into law. This mandated managing catches at sustainable rates. The result of all this has reversed the overfishing problem in waters controlled by the US. There is still more work to be done but success has come from fishery management, primarily based on population dynamics, reducing bycatch, and direct physical habitat damage as opposed to ecosystem concepts.

Ecosystem approaches to fishery management may someday offer success but like the climate we have one heckuva a lot to learn and not a whole lot of relevant data to learn from.

In recent years there has been a lot of alarmism on corals. Indeed physical coral damage has been widespread. Anchoring and bottom dragging have been identified as two of the biggest problems. Coral bleaching alarmism began several years ago in relationship to AGW. However, there is not data to support that notion, much less to support fishing as the culprit. I recall reading not too long ago about a major coral bleaching event in Australia in a place where one of the largest unperturbed zones was in place along the Great Barrier Reef.

I have been involved in this area for a lot of years. Its good to keep an open mind and realize that there is a lot of particulars and a strong need to correctly parse out the specific causes for a problem.