Climate alarmists have continually claimed that the Great Barrier reef is dying because of climate change. Unfortunately, for them, record coral cover and growth over the last two years is shooting a hole in that narrative. (1)
The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) reported that the Great Barrier Reef's central section and northern section now have record coral cover. A natural event, a crown-of-thorns outbreak, prevented the southern section reaching record level too.
The AIMS annual survey gives the shocking result that not only was last year a record, but this year is even better. There is more coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef than ever recorded.
As recently as May 2022, environmentalists were warning that the Great Barrier Reef, the 1,500 mile coral structure of the coast of Queensland, was being doomed by warming seas. It was reported to be suffering a 'mass bleaching' --where the plants which live on the reef and provide food for it die off. The blame was put on warmer seas. Worse, this was the first mass beaching event to occur in a 'La Nina' year, when the seas off Australia are supposed to be going through a cyclical cooling phase. A gloomy David Wachenfeld, chief scientist of the Great Barrier Reef Authority, said that unexpected events are now to be expected. Nothing surprises me more.
2
Four bleaching events in the last seven years, and record hottest ever heat, the highest CO2 levels recorded since we invented ways to record CO2, and yet, despite all that, the reef is thriving.
3
Coral cover has not only recovered but across two-thirds of the reef it is now at its highest level in 36 years of observations. The speed of the recovery is remarkable, in 2016 the entire reef was declared dead in an obituary published in the environmental magazine Outside. But, like the stories of people saved from cremation by a slight twitch at the eleventh hour, its death seems to have been exaggerated.
As Ross Clark noted, "It shouldn't really come as a surprise that the response of the reef to warmer seas is not fully understood. When you have comprehensive data going back only 36 years it is pretty difficult to understand long term trends."
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Peter Ridd fearlessly speaks the truth: "This brilliant result is proof that many science institutions have been misleading the public about the state of the Reef." The worst recent bleaching was in the northern Great Barrier Reef, yet this section has the most spectacular recovery. We know that corals bleached all the way back in 1862, and probably have for millions of years, there were just not many scuba divers to record it.
3
This study is an absolute blockbuster in terms of busting the myth that corals are on the verge of extinction.
References
- Senator Malcolm Roberts, "The Great Barrier Reef is not dying!", principia-scentific.com, August 9, 2022
- Ross Clark, "How did climate doomsters get the Great Barrier Reef so wrong?", spectator.co.uk, August 3, 2022
- Joanne Nova, "Climate change causes record coral cover- what if we get too many reefs?," joannenova.com.au, August 4, 2022
