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Coral reef totally recovers (for 400th time) and researchers surprised

CoralsIf only coral researchers read skeptic blogs, they’d know that corals have been getting bleached and wrecked by cyclones for millions of years. They have adaptable genes, honed by 500 million years of natural selection, plus epigenetic tricks, and with safe zones to seed recovery. The Great Barrier Reef spans 2,000 kilometers and five degrees Celsius from 27 to 32°C and we’re still finding reefs we didn’t even know about. The pH swings on a daily basis, and fish do better when it does. One coral has adapted to ocean “acidification” in 6 months. Other fish remarkably adapted from salt to freshwater in just fifty years. As Peter Ridd says: Of all the ecosystems in the world, the reef is one that’s best at adapting to climate change.

So once again, corals have recovered — and yet the “experts” who wear their dogma covered glasses didn’t see it coming.

‘Teeming with life’: New hope for the Great Barrier Reef as island shows remarkable coral growth

By Melissa Martin and Erin Semmler, ABC

One Tree Island was lashed by Cyclone Hamish in 2009, destroying much of the island’s coral.

In the five years following the cyclone, no metabolic recovery was detected on the reef and by 2014 calcification of the coral had declined by 75 per cent.

But things changed dramatically between 2014 and 2017, when Ms Davis and her team at the National Marine Science Centre found the coral system calcification increased four-fold.

“We found that the coral ecosystem has completely recovered from this cyclone event after eight years,” Ms Davis said.

 Commenter Pat points out that the Brisbane Times picked this up a week before the ABC.

In other news, environmentalists are doing their best to destroy tourism:

She said tourists are more worried about the reef than previously because of the way it is portrayed in the media.

“Questions I get asked everyday, they say, ‘so is the reef dead? Is this bleached here?'” she said.

Things the ABC BBC and CBC might forget to tell you about coral reefs:

All posts on Reefs, Corals, and the Great Barrier Reef

REFERENCE

Frontiers in Marine Science open-source journal

h/t George, David, Pat

Image: Wikimedia, author Wise Hok Wai Lum: Flynn Reef 2014.

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