Back to the serious stuff

AIMS Media Release January 2, 2009

It’s official: the biggest and most robust corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have slowed their growth by more than 14 per cent since the "tipping point" year of 1990. Evidence is strong that the decline has been caused by a synergistic combination of rising sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification.

A paper* published today (Friday 2 January 2009) in the prestigious international journal Science and written by AIMS scientists Dr Glenn De’ath, Dr Janice Lough and Dr Katharina Fabricius is the most comprehensive study to date on calcification rates of GBR corals...

On current trends, the corals would stop growing altogether by 2050.

"The data suggest that this severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least 400 years," said AIMS scientist and principal author Dr Glenn De’ath.

And here I was thinking that the Americans had cornered the market in really strange surnames.

But I shouldn't make light of him: it sounds as if his work is a pretty significant milestone for showing that the Great Barrier Reef really is in serious trouble. (And as for the ocean acidification component, it will happen regardless of air temperature.)

By the way, Tim Blair and his readers seem to take profound pleasure in their ignorance lately, when it comes to ridiculing any and all geoengineering concepts for dealing with CO2. For example, iron fertilization of the oceans as an idea has been around for a long time, and has often been discussed in popular science magazines like Discover or New Scientist. Sure, many scientists are sceptical of it being a good idea, but it has been tried on a small scale, and calling it the equivalent of a madman's idea is just displaying ignorance. It also shows an attitude more appropriate for a certain class of annoying self centred teenager, where ridicule is the easier option than actually trying to understand something. (Overly idealist teenagers who think they will change the world overnight are also annoying in their own way, as Blair knows.)

As with Andrew Bolt, Tim shows no sign of even a vague attempt at informing himself as to the real issues of climate change and ocean acidification, and just accepts any skeptical opinion with open arms. (He recently provided a link to "electric plasma" fan Louis Hissink, a well known climate skeptic at Jennifer Marohasy's. His fondness for Velikovsky's eccentric - although admittedly fun to contemplate - ideas puts him well outside the geologists' mainstream. )

I've said it before and will say it again: taking shots at exaggerations and media reporting on the "warminist" side is one thing, as is scepticism that carbon trading is going to work, or that the answer lies in a few million windmills.

But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.