Coral spawning is visible from the air | Vimeo Biopixel
From the Bolt Report, Professor Peter Ridd points out how little we know about the history of bleaching of corals. Corals have been around for 200 million years, but we only discovered coral bleaching and coral spawning in the 1980s, even though the synchronized slicks are so vast they are visible in satellite shots. When discussing whether the Great Barrier Reef going to die he says “everything that I look at says the opposite”.
Professor Peter Ridd (James Cook Uni)
“Terry Hughes is on record as saying Bleaching is a new phenomena — it never happened before the 1980s. It is an absurdity –we just discovered it to science in the 1980s.
There is another thing the reef does that is equally spectacular — and that’s coral spawning — three days after the full moon in November every year the whole barrier reef, every coral virtually, releases egg bundles that float to the surface and from the air we can see these massive slicks of coral spawn on the surface. It’s incredible. we only discovered that in 1982.
Are we really suggesting that “it never happened before” that corals only discovered sex in 1982?
Of course, it’s been going on for 200 million years.
Yet, when we discovered coral bleaching in the 1980s that its anthropogenic, it’s bad, it’s us…
For background, coral spawning happens at night, the timing is tied to full moons, though happens in different months on different reefs around the world and can be confused with algal blooms.
See Peter Ridd speak on The Bolt Report
Peter Ridd is a geophysicist working at the Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research.
h/t Marvin W