2010, another year of extreme coral bleaching

Quote: Originally Posted by petros

5 major mass extinctions, all with wild swings in both ocean and atmospheric chemistry and all were catastrophic with huge changes in just a matter of a few hours.

Trilobites didn't survive the Ordo-Sil event although all previous catastrophes created more and more diversification for the trilobite, yet corals which have had very little change right from day one have cruised right on through?

Quote: Originally Posted by Tonington

No...sponge bob is a sponge. The corals don't die because of the heat, they die of starvation because there are no photosynthesizing zooxanthellae to sustain them.

Of course not.

The rate of change right now exceeds the majority of natural ocean chemistry and temperature changes in the past, with few exceptions. Corals will migrate, and they can adapt. But they can adapt over long periods of time, not on decadal time scales. It took 30 million years for atmospheric CO2 to drop from 900 ppmv to present levels, and we will push it back to that level on our present trajectory in just 90 years. These kinds of changes we're imposing will appear in the geologic record as those few exceptions that nature provided, and just as when nature provided the change, there will be massive loss of biodiversity.

Quote: Originally Posted by Tonington

Yes, that's exactly what I said:
"The rate of change right now exceeds the majority of natural ocean chemistry and temperature changes in the past, with few exceptions."



Little change for corals? Cruised right on through? What is your basis for those statements?

Quote: Originally Posted by Johnnny

In my opinion if the coral of today dies off, it will be replaced slowly of course and life will go on.

Quote: Originally Posted by Tonington

In a few millenia...in the meantime the oceans lose massive amounts of biomass.

Quote: Originally Posted by petros

So in the mean time we kill the last of the Peruvian sardines to feed caged up salmon? Good idea.