Bummer: Climate Change Stalls Reef Growth

Everybody panic!!!!!!!!

(Time) A study published Thursday says our coral reefs could be in danger. Toth and her co-writers say in the study that El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) caused reef ecosystems in the tropical eastern pacific to collapse thousands of years ago, and pollution combined with global warming changes could now repeat the process. The sea temperature changes associated with El Niños are the main cause for the coral reefs dying off from bleaching.

Around 4000 years ago reef growth began to shut down. The collapse lasted about 2500 years. Scientists came to this conclusion after analyzing coral reefs on Panama’s Pacific coast. They inspected cross-sections of the reefs using radiocarbon dating and mass spectrometry techniques to find the “hiatus” in the reef’s growth, as it was described in the report. Coral reefs in Japan and Australia experienced similar hiatuses in growth. Scientists believe that the widespread distribution of the hiatus suggests that it was caused by historical changes in ENSO.

(MSNBC) Coral reefs along Panama’s Pacific coast completely collapsed for 2,500 years due to natural climate cycles, researchers reported in a study Thursday, adding that there’s a lesson in the data for man-made climate change: ease up on greenhouse gasses and reefs will restore themselves.

(Phys.org) Climate change drove coral reefs to a total ecosystem collapse lasting thousands of years, according to a paper published this week in Science. The paper shows how natural climatic shifts stopped reef growth in the eastern Pacific for 2,500 years. The reef shutdown, which began 4,000 years ago, corresponds to a period of dramatic swings in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). “As humans continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the climate is once again on the threshold of a new regime, with dire consequences for reef ecosystems unless we get control of climate change,” said coauthor Richard Aronson, a biology professor at Florida Institute of Technology.

Notice that in each and every story, and you can find more (study is here behind paywall), says that “hey, this was all natural” but “this could be happening now!!!!!!!” Say, what happened around 4,000 years ago?

(graphic via Deneen Borelli)

Now, can anyone see what happened around 4,000 years ago? Hint for Warmists: it wasn’t getting warmer.

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7 Responses to “Bummer: Climate Change Stalls Reef Growth”

  1. john says:

    Yes Teach they have been many changes on this planet over the last 3-4 billion years. But now that humans have reached a population of 7 billion AND have advanced technology we have become one of the forces that can change climate. When the climate changes life must adapt or die, in the short term that may mean that 100s of millions of the poorest humans may suffer or die before they can adapt. For you and I the effects of climate change will be barely noticed, just turn the AC up anothjer notch.

  2. Jacko says:

    I just find it hard to believe that scientist have it all figured out but yet in still the light bill get higher every month.

    People still don’t have a cure for the common cold.

    But these guys have a solution to everything? Nope actually they have theories.

    I have a theory. Lets stop poisons from entering our rivers and streams. Stop industrial chemical waste.

  3. david7134 says:

    Great comment John. Now were is your proof? This article on coral is the same one I saw 50 years ago. And if you are going to reference CO2, please indicate how a small rise in the gas can cause such devistation. For instance, show a study that clearly shows how a percent rise in CO2 definitley causes an increment rise in temperature. Then show the connection between CO2 and man, then show the carbonic acid rise in the oceans (not just the decrease in pH). Then show how destroying our economy will help any more than the 3% decrese in CO2 predicted by climate people. Then show why scientist are beginning to doubt all this crap.

  4. If you were really worried about “the poor”, John, you and all your Warmist ilk would practice what you preach. You’re also scientifically illiterate.

    The Warmists can’t, David. All they can do is intimate that something will happen in the far future because all their computer models and tea leave reading fails in the short term.

  5. The Quadfather says:

    Four lessons are to be learned from this.
    1. Reefs occasionally die off. It’s a natural phenomenom.
    2. Eventually they grow back.
    3. it’s not our fault.
    4. Media tend to insert propaganda into scientific information. Unproven theories, more fairy tales than actual theory.

  6. Gumball_Brains says:

    Good riddance to em. More food for the others.

    Right john? Survival of the fittest?

  7. Gumball_Brains says:

    I just got notified of the comment from Jacko.

    Hey Jacko, these scientists are too busy creating chemical prophylactics for gay sex and women who choose to act like rabbits in law school.

    News today that the FDA is approving the use of a drug that can “prevent” gay men from getting HIV\AIDS. It increases resistance to getting HIV to 40% when COMBINED with protective sex techniques.

    Ummmmm… so, those who choose to participate in homosexual sex, and choose to wear “protection” are less than 40% protected?

    So, now they can take a pill to get them up to 40%… so they can CONTINUE to have homosexual sex even though they know that doing so has a >60% chance of getting HIV!?!?!?!?

    No worries. It won’t affect aquatic wildlife.

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