Adaptive little corals

 

  • angech says:

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    ATTP, Michael TE et al
    “My understanding is that many people rely on meltwater from glaciers. Hence, if the glaciers disappear, there will be no more meltwater. I don’t think that one should assume that there will somehow be an equivalent amount of precipitation that can replace the meltwater.”

    No glaciers, warmer, more moisture in air, in mountains gives increased water reserves. Dams if not already in place could help conserve water for the hotter part at the end of the year. Though if this is the monsoons the water comes straight from the sky.
    Glaciers and temp as we know them. Melt a little every year stay the same as the same amount of snow and rain input as output.
    Glaciers do not produce water de novo!
    More glaciers colder temp, less water after all if the glaciers are increasing in size it is because less of the water is free each year to run to the coast.

    As an aside, Norway, Fiords, Glaciers melting. Spectacular waterfalls everywhere in May/June? as the water from the melting snow1 pours in countless cataracts over the cliffs. Massive flows are not from Glacier melt, They are from rain and snow in the mountains.
    Sorry to disillusion all.

  • angech says:

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    Mosher
    Too funny
    “identify the damage and the adaptation you suggest.”
    Always only one side of the coin.
    Damage, Damage, Damage.
    Try the Mary Poppins side.
    In the weird illogical world we live on for such a short time, inhabited by logical human beings trying to cope.
    Benefits.
    More crops, new crops, Apple,ice cream and strawberry tastes in a new peelable banana that stays outside the fridge for 3 months ready to eat. Multiply example 1000 fold. New ski fields accessible in Siberia for the wealthy. Underwater and on water floatable cities on the Japanese coast. Hydro power, wind and wave power plus no loss of life from earthquakes.More fish farms as coastal land goes under helping feed lobster, tuna and trout to the starving masses. More oxygen available at higher levels, look out Denver. Increased rainfall to the equatorial fringes of the Hadley celss as they move polewards bringing dusty deserts back to life.
    Less cold inhibiting life on earth.
    What’s not to like.
    Roll on some warming, please.

  • angech says:

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    BBD says:
    Thanks for putting up a researched argument.
    Veron et al. (2009) The coral reef crisis: The critical importance of <350 ppm CO2

    “Temperature-induced mass coral bleaching causing mortality on a wide geographic scale started when atmospheric CO2 levels exceeded ~320 ppm.”
    Stating it is not proving it. Bleaching events are caused by a combination of known factors and as such have been happening for millions of years. We have only just had the technology develop to show events in real time recently.

    “When CO2 levels reached ~340 ppm, sporadic but highly destructive mass bleaching occurred in most reefs world-wide, often associated with El Niño events”.
    Two misconstructs, not your fault , though I presume you agree with them.
    Firstly CO2 levels.
    I doubt that CO2 by itself at any level can possibly cause coral bleaching.
    What the authors should specify is Co2 giving global temperature rise giving sea temperature rise etc. Seeing they did not do so is a dead giveaway that they are unable to do so with validity.
    Claiming results based on CO2 level is false.
    “Sporadic but world wide”
    Not even a clue on how to interpret such nonsense. Since the level is now so much higher at 412 one presumes the events have become common and world wide and all the coral has died?
    No.

    “At today’s level of ~387 ppm, allowing a lag-time of 10 years for sea temperatures to respond, most reefs world-wide are committed to an irreversible decline”.
    Always tomorrow not today. Allowing a lag time of 10 years the level of reaching 380 10 years previously should be kicking in now [2009] or did I miss that?
    Silly me, when it went up to 380 it kicked in and killed coral immediately, no waiting 10 years, but the new level has to take 10 years to do it?

    “Mass bleaching will in future become annual, El Niño events,degraded water-quality and increased severe weather events, the progressive onset of ocean acidification, etc, etc..
    Earth’s sixth mass extinction.”

    Coral bleaches when the sea level is too low, not high, when the water is too hot, when there are not enough clouds around during the day.
    El Nino certainly helps by putting up global temp when it occurs.
    There is an east to west pile up of waters for GBR in particular, at times this goes the other way and sea levels can fall dramatically for months around any coastline.
    Anyone really, really want to claim that bleaching is only approx 1990’s on phenomenon and has never happened in the past on low water level days with no cloud cover, sporadically around the world forever?
    Go for it.

    29/3/2018  “What are the consequences of this anthropogenically-driven warming?
    We obviously expect an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme heatwaves.”
    Not sure why the frequency should go up, the heatwave is an increase on the background heat which will be higher but this does not presage frequency, merely intensity.
    A heatwave in cold environments would not be unwelcome to people.

    ” We also expect the hydrological cycle to intensify, which essentially means more evaporation and, consequently, more precipitation.”
    Yes. More water could be good in some places. Obviously dry areas move polewards with the Hadley cells.

    “In particular, we expect an increase in the frequency and intensity of the most extreme precipitation events.”
    If there is more water in the air logically there should be more rain. Intensity against the old baseline? The more extreme an event is classed as the less often it can occur. Frequency by definition would have to stay the same.

    ” We also expect an increase in the frequency and intensity of some of the more extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones”.
    Treading on questionable grounds there. I thought that an increase in temperature is expected to reduce the frequency tropical cyclones but make them more likely, when they occur, to be more intense? Sure some of the weather guys here can correct me if wrong.
angech says:

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verytallguy says: March 27, 2018 at 3:48 pm Angech,
“the logarithmic relationship is purely a convenient fit of data to a curve. It is only relevant to the range of data fitted. In other words, It’s empirical, not based on any underlying truth.
I can’t find any obvious reference, so Angech will have to trust me. (!)”‘

Data fitting to a curve? We do see a lot of it. Nothing wrong on it’s own.
The concept of doubling taken to extremes proves the point that the concept of the doubling is purely curve fitting and not based on the actual underlying physics. It becomes physically implausible at the lower levels, hence it can only be an observationally based observation.
Which is all I was saying.
The concept that there is a physical basis purely on the concentration is wrong at other parts of the curve.
I did put a quote up from Arrhenius on doubling, quadrupling, halving and quartering. I hope that bit can be repeated and seen since there were two replies to it.
Basically he said that a halving would drop it by 4C and a quartering by 8C, so it seems logical that he implied this was an ongoing feature of his claim.
Interesting aside was the fact that the CO2 effect is primarily at higher levels where the H20 does not reach, basically a blanket outside the blanket H2O doing all the heavy lifting.
Everyone happy with that concept?

Joshua says:
“angech –A heatwave in cold environments would not be unwelcome to people”
“What do you gain from such comments that so lack specificity that they are completely worthless (with respect to a reasoned discussion – they may have value in winding people up, I suppose)?”

Wooah.
Rewind please.
Joshua, general comments are not always worthless.
A reasoned discussion must allow both sides of an argument, or is there only one side allowed to yours?
If that is the way, then there is no discussion and any mention of points to the contrary will be deemed as vexatious and winding up people.

I find, and again correct me if I am wrong, that this view of discussions often applies to both sides of the argument at different sites. Again, personally, I appreciate your views but find an amaurosis in your comments addressed mainly to one side. This is despite the fact that you have shown at times a genuine balance on the arguments.
I could sit down, take the views of people here, put a skeptic name to the argument and find it would be shouted down. I could take a skeptic argument, put a name from here down and it would not raise a murmur.
I do not have to do anything to wind people up, they are, like me, already wound up and just need a trigger like a hint of an opposing view.
In real life I am sometimes socially awkward and this winds some people up unintentionally. I like making jokes but do take offence too easily when the joke is at my expense. My problem, I live with it.

In regard to the issues ATTP raises I was pointing out, as usual, that there are benefits to global warming as well as detriments. I do not think the earth is one uniform set in concrete perfect place that cannot or should not be changed so that every little shy coral can live its undisturbed paradise. The world is also wrongly painted as only savage tooth and claw survival. Somewhere between there is a large balance range. We can move ourselves in and out of it and have nature do it to us whether we want it to or not.
Nothing to date shows that a warmer world will be that that much badder for us. Extreme events will always occur at rare intervals for each type of rare event but extremely frequently if one multiplies the number of different rare events by the number of different localities and times they can occur in.
Hence the relative unimportance of the big events and the recourse to a multitude of stories about the hottest/coldest/driest/wettest peatbog/methane/vortex/elNino/tree loss/deforestation flood/x1,000,000 events of climate change that might, or might not be influenced by human activity.
Do you really want to face this can of worms honestly?
And yes, AGW or even CAGW are some of the real possibilities that may exist, or not.
Even in the face of my comment.