'Zero recovery' for corals in back-to-back Australia bleaching

Yahoo – AFP, April 10, 2017

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering a fourth round of coral bleaching
this year, after being hit in 1998, 2002 and 2016 (AFP Photo/Nette WILLIS)

Sydney (AFP) - Coral bleached for two consecutive years at Australia's Great Barrier Reef has "zero prospect" of recovery, scientists warned Monday, as they confirmed the site has again been hit by warming sea temperatures.

Researchers said last month they were detecting another round of mass bleaching this year after a severe event in 2016, and their fears were confirmed after aerial surveys of the entire 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long bio-diverse reef.

Last year, the northern areas of the World Heritage-listed area were hardest hit, with the middle-third now experiencing the worst effects.

"Bleached corals are not necessarily dead corals, but in the severe central region we anticipate high levels of coral loss," said James Kerry, a marine biologist at James Cook University who led the aerial surveys.

"It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest growing corals, so mass bleaching events 12 months apart offer zero prospect of recovery for reefs that were damaged in 2016."

It is the fourth time coral bleaching -- where stressed corals expel the algae that live in their tissue and provide them with food -- has hit the reef after previous events in 1998 and 2002.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering a fourth round of coral bleaching 

this year, after being hit in 1998, 2002 and 2016 (AFP Photo/Nette WILLIS)

Record temperatures

"The combined impact of this back-to-back bleaching stretches for 1,500 kilometres, leaving only the southern third unscathed," said Terry Hughes, head of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, also at James Cook University.

"The bleaching is caused by record-breaking temperatures driven by global warming.

"This year, 2017, we are seeing mass bleaching, even without the assistance of El Nino conditions," he added, referring to the natural climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean.

The Barrier Reef is already under pressure from farming run-off, development and the crown-of-thorns starfish.

It was also recently hammered by category four Cyclone Debbie, which barrelled through the region last month, mostly affecting southern parts around the Whitsunday islands which largely escaped the bleaching.

The extent of the destruction wrought by Debbie is not yet known, although scientists have said damage could range from minor to severe.

Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority began a study last week to determine how extensive it might be and have already found extensive pulverised coral at popular snorkeling spots.

"The feedback that's coming back is the more sheltered areas have come out a bit better, but they all seem to have suffered some form of damage," Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators' Brendon Robinson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Whitsundays is one of the reef's tourist hotspots, attracting more than 40 percent of total visitors to the iconic marine ecosystem.

An aerial view of bleaching in the Cairns-Townsville region of Australia's 

Great Barrier Reef (AFP Photo/Ed ROBERTS)

Multiple impacts

Hughes warned rising temperatures could see more bleaching events.

"Clearly the reef is struggling with multiple impacts. Without a doubt the most pressing of these is global warming," he said.

"As temperatures continue to rise the corals will experience more and more of these events. One degree Celsius of warming so far has already caused four events in the past 19 years.

"Ultimately, we need to cut carbon emissions, and the window to do so is rapidly closing."

The world's nations agreed in Paris in 2015 to limit average warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, by curbing fossil fuel burning.

Canberra in 2015 narrowly avoided UNESCO putting the reef on its endangered list, and has committed more than Aus$2.0 billion (US$1.5 billion) to protect it over the next decade.

Japan volcanic islands may hold keys to coral survival pic.twitter.com/Ed9QVQEC8n

— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 17, 2017

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“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

"....The Prediction: The Renewal of the Life Cycle

When you change the temperature strata of the oceans of the earth, things start to change, for the life cycle of the food in the ocean depends upon that which is the smallest. The plankton of the planet survive in certain temperatures, and that's changing. Throw away what you think you know about how it's all supposed to work, and instead think "renewal" or "how did it begin." This will serve you to understand what is happening now. This cycle is built to replenish the ocean with life and not always by sustaining the kind that was there.

Let us just talk about the ocean for a moment. We won't even get to what's happening in the air and what mammals might experience. Let's just speak of the ocean. Have you heard about the salmon? What has your science warned you against? You're overfishing! The sea is dying. The coral is dying. The reefs are going away. You're not seeing the food chain that used to be there. You've overfished everything. Fishing quotas have been set up to help this. Oh, all those little people in the red room - they don't know about the purple. Red people only know about the red paradigm.

Did you hear about the salmon recently? There's too many of them! In the very place where quotas are in place so you won't overfish, they're jumping in the boats! Against all odds and any projections from environmentalists or biologists, they're overrunning the oceans in Alaska - way too many fish.

What does that tell you? Is it possible that Gaia takes care of itself? That's what it tells you! Perhaps this alignment is going to keep humanity fed. Did anybody think of this? What if Gaia is in alliance with you? What if the increase in consciousness that raised your DNA vibration has alerted Gaia to change the weather cycle and get ready to feed humanity? Are you looking at the ocean where the oil spill occurred? It's recovering in a way that was not predicted. What's happening?

The life cycle itself is being altered by the temperature change of the ocean and much of what you have believed is the paradigm of life in the sea is slowly changing. A new system of life is appearing, as it has before, and is upon you in your lifetime. It will compliment what you know and expose you to a new concept: Gaia regularly refreshes the life cycle on Earth.

Within this process, there will be the extinction of certain plants and animals, birds and fish. My advice to you, especially to those environmentalists, is to understand the cycle of life so that you may relax with what nature has always done. It puts life on the planet to serve the planet for a time. When certain life no longer serves the planet in the ways it used to, it takes it away. The extinction of life, especially through weather change, is normal for Gaia. It is honored, appropriate and normal, even if you don't think so. Don't try to save all the disappearing animals, fish and birds! Some are supposed to go away. And, dear ones, don't assign all this activity to something you did to cause it!

The red people are stressing. The purple is here, and they are trying to figure out what they did wrong. They don't know they are in the Rainbow Room. They think they are in the RED ROOM. This is what the Rainbow Room does; it changes colors. So as the room does what it has always done, the red people are sitting there in fear trying to figure out what it is that they did that possibly could have caused the purple to appear.

The Rainbow Room is beautiful. The color purple is significant. Going from red to purple has metaphysical significance within this parable, but I'll let you figure it out. For those who are into colors, there's a reason why I gave those two. The earth is becoming more sacred than it's ever been before. Gaia is with you in this. It's cooperating in ways you never thought it could, in the way biologists said it would not. You think you're killing it? Instead, it's giving birth to an altered ecological system. ...."