Corals in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. (Courtesy of Jessica Hankins)
By Jo Nova
Everyone was sure that corals would be degraded by our “increasingly acidic oceans” (a political-activist-term for “slightly less alkaline”). But when a team took cores from 200 year old corals in the ocean — instead of studying them for a few months in a laboratory — they discovered some corals have adjusted to the pace of “acidification” much more effectively than anyone thought. The corals actively manage the chemistry of the thin layer of fluid next to the skeleton as the ocean chemistry shifts.
Who would have thought that corals would have the ability to cope with rapid changes in the climate?
In the last 4 million years, corals have only survived 90 or more ice-age cycles.
L. E. Lisiecki and M. E. Raymo (2005)
If only someone had thought to test actual corals at sea before they spent twenty years scaring little children at school?
Thanks to Oldbrew at Tallboke’s.
From the Press Release: Corals are “More resilient than previously thought”
Corals, the foundation of ocean biodiversity, are threatened by climate change. But new research suggests that these organisms might be more resilient than previously thought.
In a study published August 27 in Science Advances, a CU Boulder researcher showed that despite a gradual increase in ocean acidity levels over the past 200 years, some corals seem to be able to adjust and continue to generate their hard, stony skeleton structures.
While it remains unclear how the corals adapted to the changing environment, Hankins said the secret might lie in their calcifying fluid.
“It could be that the processes corals use to modify and regulate their calcifying fluid are more complex than we’ve been able to constrain previously,” said Hankins. “More studies are needed to determine if different species, or if the same species in a different location, have similar responses,” she said.
The ocean absorbs about 30% of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities. As more CO2 dissolves in the ocean, the seawater undergoes a chemical reaction that makes the ocean surface more acidic. Previous studies suggest that ocean acidity has increased by 40% since the Industrial Revolution and is likely to rise further.
Corals use aragonite, or calcium carbonate to build their skeleton. It turns out that pH of the water is so important that corals don’t leave it up to chance, but manage the right pH in the calcifying fluid around the skeleton. Corals build their skeleton in a microscopic compartment between the coral’s tissue and the skeleton. The area is only micrometers thick, and they use proton pumps to get rid of H+ molecules and control the pH themselves.
In the graph below, in part A we can see that the aragonite in the calcifying fluid (Ωcf) has been increasing since about 1840 in the oldest coral. In B the aragonite in the seawater starts to fall rapidly from about 1970 onwards, which ought to “change everything”. However in D, despite all that, the annual calcification rate stays remarkably similar.
Fig. 2. Multidecadal time series of coral growth parameters and seawater conditions.
Coral Sea (blue) and Yonge Reef (red) core (A) calcifying fluid ΩAr (Ωcf), (B) seawater ΩAr (Ωsw), (C) sea surface temperature, (D) annual calcification rate, (E) linear extension (i.e., annual vertical growth), and (F) skeletal density. In each panel, monthly (for Ωcf) or annual (all other parameters) data are plotted along with linear regression trendlines. Significant (P value <0.05) trends are plotted as solid lines, and nonsignificant trends are plotted as dashed lines. Shading in (A) indicates ±1 standard error of the mean among three replicate down-core sampling transects. The Ωcf data were treated with change-point analysis, hence the two trendlines per coral record (see Materials and Methods).
Just because one study in one type of coral shows that corals may be more resilient than thought doesn’t mean the whole Great Barrier Reef will be fine. But it does show that the experts have been talking out of their hats, whipping up dramas they really didn’t understand.
REFERENCES
Jessica Hankins and Thomas M Decarlo (2025) Multidecadal decoupling between coral calcifying fluid and seawater saturation states, Science Advances, 27 Aug 2025 Vol 11, Issue 35 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adr0264
L. E. Lisiecki and M. E. Raymo (2005) — A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records, Paleoceanography 20, 1003
No, it doesn’t mean “The Reef will be fine,” but YET AGAIN it DOES mean that Science is not settled, that activist Scientism is almost always wrong, and that people with vested interests are prone to being fools, as are the people who listen to them. I mean YET AGAIN we find that “it’s not as bad as we thought! When do the Electorate figure this out???
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Corals are receiving “free” solar electricity and thereby don’t need our subsidy.
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Interesting isn’t it that when Christopher (Lord) Monckton presented his research of historic record data and revealed that the UN IPCC climate modelling contained many errors and omissions that was when the science is settled statement was released to shut him down.
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As I have said before, these sort of “surprises” have come about because the Left have corrupted the scientific method by a number of means, one of which is the incorrect belief of Aristotle of a static, unchanging world and universe. Thus, when any change is detected, they are taken by complete surprise. They are unaware of the last two plus millennia of scientific progress which has revealed how highly adaptable nature is and the constantly changing environment and climate.
Aa articulated by Aristotle in “In the Heavens” 350BCE:
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And to think that Aristotle may have changed his whole of universe, (static), view if he had just seen one supernova.
If that’s not a light bulb moment, then what is it?
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Aristotles main problem was he didn’t read a book called Dark Emu. If he had he would have been able to understand so much more about the universe.
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But Aristotle spoke ancient Greek and wouldn’t have been unable to read gibberish.
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Corals adapt.
Humans grift.
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Who would have thought Coral was smarter than CC grifters!!!
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Could it be that Big Wind Bowen does something similar when using a defence mechanism? When he is asked a scientific question by a climate sceptic, he produces arrogancite. This excretion helps him to deflect prickly questions and give off a seemingly impenetrable aura of smugness.
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Blowin’ exudes Dunning Krugacite-
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No doubt this was a US taxpayer funded adventure holiday for the participants, as is nearly all climate research involving travel to exotic locations…
There were no locals able to do this research?
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Adapt to what? This is ridiculous chemistry. The pH of Sea water is identical to tap water! What species does tap water threaten (apart from the lack of salt)?
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They aren’t quite the same, (excluding common salt),
The pH of tap water, (assuming a little lime has been added as an aid to the added flocculents and as a pH modifier), would be close to 7.5.
The pH of sea water is from 7.5 to 8.4 according to wiki.
Different ions are present beyond NaCl. In the sea water case there is often NaHCO3, a very good buffer, there is also a lot more calcium and aluminium, (think clay/silts). Other elements are in the sea water too.
It’s the buffering chemicals that give stability, working to keep the pH in a near static range. We should all give them more credit, they do a wonderful job. Vote one for the buffers.
On a percentage term, excluding common salt, they are mostly the same
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Pure water is 7.0. The shift to basic is mainly due to the concrete pipes generally used in reticulation. But we are dealing with truly tiny concentrations of any of these things. One atom in a billion. To even call ph8.0 basic is a joke. Which is why no one really worries about the concrete pipes. The Romans used lead pipes in the houses of the rich, which was a medical disaster. Even Victorians with their lead crystal decanters. You cannot leave liquids in crystal for long.
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If a pipe gives up its Calcium to the water, then it is eroding. It’s not going to be around for long. The last time I used a concrete pipe for water transport it was a cement lined ductile iron pipe, very common but the water has to be chemically managed else it fast becomes a DI pipe instead of a DICL. And then DI becomes rust.
One of the purposes of water treatment is to make the water non-corrosive to the pipes that transport it. And by the way, pH of 7 does not make it safe for transport, (ie non corrosive). You use the Langelier equation(s) to determine the corrosive nature of water at different ion and temperature combinations. It is not unusual to add lime to the water to stop it being hungry for ions whether they be metal or other. Buffering chemicals, like bicarbonate are almost mandatory.
If you balance your water well enough and control the temperature against fluctuations, you could in theory send water down lead pipes and draw no excess ions from the pipe. I wouldn’t do it, just in case something went wrong. Hell, we can’t afford another Canberra full of cretins. And I’d never want to drink deionised water that had been stored in lead, it will try it’s best to reach equilibrium, which means that lead will be drawn into the water. The only option for deionised water to make it safe to store/transport is to modify it’s temperature or pH by the addition of CO2 or ammonia. Both gases boil off when required, (say for a steam boiler application). Any salts added will destroy it’s deionised properties and unlike the gas ions, they can’t readily be removed.
Have a look at the LSI section in the attached reference for more info.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water
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The old atmospheric CO2 levels of 1750 are only 33% lower than today. World wide CO2 levels are obviously maintained with an iron fist within 1%, from pole to pole, year to year. The same where no one lives as in the narrow latitude band of China, US, Europe, Japan, Russia. Isn’t that obvious?
As for the story man released CO2 and goes into the surface of the ocean and makes it acidic when 98% all all CO2 is already in the ocean! The fossil fuel CO2 production has only just reached 1% of what is in the air which is only 2% of what is in the ocean. So our annual contribution to CO2 is only 0.02%.
Consider for a second the source of the extra CO2 is the ocean. If a slightly warmer ocean released just 1% over 250 years, that would increase atmospheric CO2 by 50%! Isn’t that the obvious explanation? Of course all CO2 gas has to go through the top layer where CO2 meets the atmosphere. That’s the basis of Henry’s Law. CO2 evaporation and condensation in perfect balance at the surface. It’s called equilibrium.
Has there ever been a science lie as absurd or as malicious as ocean acidification?
And ‘scientists’ discovering there is no observable problem is hardly an earth shattering conclusion. Humans in a room experience 1000ppm routinely, a 250% increase not 50%. Who says CO2 levels are constant around living things anyway? All living things breathe out CO2 because CO2 powers all life on earth. And those naughty shellfish are generating their own CO2 at home.
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None of this is a surprise. Corals have been adapting for millenia. And so far, this has not been “Rapid” Change.
Also can someone explain how a change from pH 8.2 to ph 8.1 a 30% change? (I know. If they said change from 8.2 to 8.1 it would not get the headlines)
I understand the logarithmic nature but even using the formula often quoted it only comes to 1.23% change. What am I missing?
Percent Change = (100 times (\frac{[H^{+}]_{final}}{[H^{+}]_{initial}}-1)\).
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As a numerical difference you are correct.
The way they appear to calculate it is evaluation of 10^(8.2-8.1) = 10^0.1 = 1.26 therefore a 26% increase in hydrogen ion concentration.
One is percent change, the other is percent difference, I think.
As pH is a logarithmic scale anyway, I don’t think a 26% increase in hydrogen ion concentration is particularly significant anyway.
Naturally the anti-energy lobby will choose the scariest possible interpretation.
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Napier’s logarithms replaced multiplication by addition by expressing numbers as a factor of 10.
And the slide rule used adding distances to replace multiplying numbers.
Thus 8.2-8.1=0.1. This is the power of ten. Expressed as a number it is x1.26 or an increase of 26%. (10^0.1=1.26)
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I read the story that the ocean has only ‘limited capacity to absorb’ CO2. What utter nonsense. Water pressures are 1 atmosphere at the surface increasing 1 atmosphere every 10 metres. So 15 metres down is 2.5atmospheres, the pressure of soda water. But soda water is acid, ph 4.5 not 8.0, so 3500x the amount of CO2 in the ocean surface. And at the bottom of the alleged ‘surface ocean’ you get a pressure at 100 metres of 11 atmospheres.
CO2 phase diagram.
At that depth if CO2 existed as a gas, it would be a liquid!
CO2 is an incredibly soluble gas, 30x more soluble than Oxygen or Nitrogen or Argon, the other main gases. Mainly because it dissociates immediately into ions.
But it can instantly turn back into a gas with just exposure to a rough surface.
But oxygen is still substantial in the ocean because we know fish breathe. And of course they breathe out CO2.
This endless vilification of CO2 has to stop. It’s not science. And the absurd proposition that humans control how much CO2 is in the air when it is obvious, self evident humans do not and cannot. It is a constant across the planet. 310,000 giant windmills have as much logic in controlling CO2 as the Easter Island Statues had or the stone circles of history.
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Ah yes, the magic gas.
Last month’s surgery on my detached retina didn’t ‘take’, so I went back under the knife for operation #2 – clean out the goop and insert a larger gas bubble behind the retina to gently reattach it to the eyeball – complete with a wristband stating no scuba diving, no flying, no mountaineering, due to the resultant changes in pressure. And the contents of said ‘gas bubble’?
Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, and Carbon Dioxide. It’s atmospheric doncha know. Air! Air! Air!
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Hope they have saved your vision Greg. Must have been alarming.
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I am particularly annoyed at the silence of all universities, the CSIRO, BOM, Chief Scientist that they say nothing about this travesty of science. From ocean acidification to human control of CO2 to the idea that there is any problem at all. Why do we have to wait 37 years for anyone to call out this lie? And why are we taxpayers funding their silence?
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Why? It’s just the money. The reef has been critically endangered by something or other for all my adult life. The answer to thee assorted threats is always apply more money. How would JCU go unless they played reef catastrophe theatre? Where did our $444 million Turnbull dollars go? It’s a very well orchestrated ,long running, financial boondoggle.
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I remember at the time the woman in charge of the $444Million could not explain what was going to happen to the money. They didn’t ask for it or submit any request and had no idea. However after a week they decided that the cost of administration would be $132Million. Personally I would love the government to give me $444million and allow me to charge $132million for doing nothing, reporting nothing, not accounting for the cash.
Perhaps Turnbull also organized the 2 year $1.5Billion Snowy Mountain II to hide the $444million. Snowy II is now over $20Billion and ten years, when the Channel Tunnel was built in 6 years. It has passed the cost of the Panama canal.
So Carbon Dioxide has justified vast spending without anyone caring whether it makes sense. The total cost of 5 desalination plants bought on credit including interest payments to the French suppliers is likely now over $100Billion. It’s nice to have a government so rich it doesn’t bother to account for even a lousy half billion dollars for nothing. Like the Billion for the pipe line to Gladstone for Forrest’s now missing hydrogen plant. Billions down the toilet, everywhere, all in the name of CO2 reduction, the non science.
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The US cost of the Panama Canal was US$500 million in 1914, US$16.2 billion today or A$25 billion.
The US build of the Canal took ten years 1904-1914. I would be surprised if SH2 is finished in ten years, if at all.
The SH2 will easily reach or exceed A$25 billion but in the case of the Canal it was something highly useful, SH2 is a White Elephant and a testament to why politicians shouldn’t be allowed to make engineering decisions.
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The ocean pH is protected from wild changes by the Carbonate Buffering System.
From Gulag AI, sorry, I don’t have time to rewrite the equations in an ASCII-friendly form. I asked Gulag to do so but it didn’t.
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Buffering is very interesting and poorly understood. Even knowing the equations and doing the calculations doesn’t help understanding much. And I confess to having taught Chemistry at the senior secondary level. So I really should have understood it far better.
When I was trying to understand the chemistry of my swimming pool I came across a video showing titration of acid into samples of pool water which was being manipulated by the addition of sodium bicarbonate. It was only after that the penny finally dropped.
We’ll know when ocean acidification is a problem when the White Cliffs of Dover dissolve.
Now if I could only find that video to share a link.
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Joanne,
Not really, but you might use a micrometer (the instrument) to measure something down to the micrometre (the unit).
From Wikipedia:
Yes, I’m being pedandic, but why adopt the US spelling of metric units when they, by and large, don’t use metric (shouldn’t they call it meteric anyway)?
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It’s off topic, but the Americans after Noah Webster use simplified spelling. He found it impossible to teach silly English spelling while the English adopted French reversals. One English committee changed very simple words like coff to cough and the new spelling made no sense. Cough, through, though, bough, bought, all silly sops to Francophiles.
Anyway Webster changed Centre to center, colour to color, grey to gray and many more. The American spelling is far simpler and easier to learn. And while Aluminium was technically invented in Europe, the Americans made it cheap and claim it is aluminum. There is a 3kg pyramid of their most precious aluminum on top of the Washington memorial, before it was made almost worthless by the new electrolysis process.
And in Science metric is used univerally. Plus for decade in the US military. And even when they do use the old Imperial units, they are changed. Short tons, 2000 lb instead of 2240.
But has there ever been a more ridiculous and deliberate distortion of English than to label alkali oceans as acidifying? That’s like calling buying a coffee as bankrupting.
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TdeF,
Yes, English spelling is horrible, but Webster’s efforts just added to the mess. Now the Americans have to muddle around with subpoena, estrogen, esophagus, maneuver. Is that *any* easier than standard English?
Metric is indeed used for science, but spelling’s not a bone of contention because it’s pretty well always as abbreviations kg, m, etc. Joanne often has to spell out the units and, since she lives in Australia, it seems reasonable to ask that she spell them the Australian way.
FWIW, your etymology of “cough” is a bit off.
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The Americans spell phonetically, sorry phoenetically.
And while the Oxford Dictionary people deny it, there are many sources for “Old English root: The word was spelled “cof” in Old English.”
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“The spelling of “cough” is so irregular that it became the basis for George Bernard Shaw’s famous example: “ghoti” pronounced as “fish” (“gh” as in cough, “o” as in women, and “ti” as in nation.”
and a lot of the ‘h’ and ‘b’s were allegedly added by printers from Europe who typeset them as in their native languages. b as in lamb. u as in onion. And an enormous number of unaspirated, unpronouced ‘h’ characters as in what, when, which, why,..
But the fantasy that oceans are acidic beat all these nonsense developments of language.
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Stweie from Family Guy says his H’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZmqJQ-nc_s
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Is it just because I am Scottish by birth that I pronounce all the “h”s in those words.
Are you trying to tell me that those words are pronounced as wat, wen, wich and wy?
Well, perhaps Poms do?
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The whole internet at your disposal, but you don’t even provide one reference. Here’s Webster’s entry:
Maybe “cohhian” is Webster’s simplified spelling of “cof”.
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I let AI do it. There aren’t too many texts in Old English. The dictionary people seem to reinforce their own opinions. And historically these are the very people who defined the new spelling and caused the mess.
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The US is in fact a metric country and has been since the Metric Conversion Act of 1975.
However, usage is not generally mandatory although it is on various packaged food items and other things.
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Go to this place using Google Earth Pro or similar:
42.916107, -94.789601
Zoom out to about 20Km (12 miles).
The land is divided in squares and rectangles based on miles. The unit was 1/320 of a mile called a rod. The rod is useful as a unit of length because integer multiples of it can form one acre of square measure. All the numbers associated with these and other measurements could be converted to metric but that won’t change the land parcels. (In the USA, the U. S. Public Land Survey System was established in 1785.)
Wine bottles went metric (6 sizes) on January 1st, 1979. 🙂
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Lucky we won’t have to worry about ocean acidification for much longer.
If however you read the whole article the scary sea level rise “may” only occur if similar glacial retreats occur on Antartica. Still a scary enough headline is what we need.
Greta has yet to find the time to look into this due to her new job.
https://www.news.com.au/world/antarctic-hektoria-glacier-shrinks-50-per-cent-in-two-months-in-fastest-retreat-ever-recorded/news-story/2e03950af7cc1682866b4b59d6546c66
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There are so many flaws with this paper one hardly knows where to begin. Firstly, if the sea-water is becoming more acidic over time then the oceans must be cooling, because cold water absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere and warm water discharges CO2 to the atmosphere. If you take a sample of sea-water at the Equator and one from the Arctic or Antarctic, you will find that the Equatorial sample will be more alkaline than the polar ones by nearly 0.3-0.4 of a pH unit.
There is something like 80 times more CO2 contained in the oceans than in all the atmosphere, so any small change in ocean temperature can have a dramatic effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. As to how they have worked out that 30% of anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed in the oceans, that might be possible, but it is such a small component (3% – 4%) of the atmospheric CO2 it is statistically insignificant.
It does tell you how clueless they really are about CO2 though, when they don’t even understand the basic principles of what they are talking about.
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Yes, that’s another interesting thing about water chemistry. That increasing temperature does not always increase solubility. As heating a swimming pool will demonstrate.
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Just more BS and nonsense from our so called Scientists over the last 37 years since Dr Hansen’s silly speech in Washington DC in 1988.
Corals are at record levels on the GBR and co2 emissions for the world show a similar trajectory since 1945.
But OECD co2 emissions are slightly lower today compared to 1988 while the NON OECD co2 emissions have soared since 2000, just like World co2 emissions since 1945 and 1988.
Meanwhile Aussie co2 emissions show little increase over the last 37 years and anyway the entire SH is a co2 NET SINK. See CSIRO Cape Grim.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OWID_WRL~OECD+%28GCP%29~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~AUS
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A couple of years ago a friend told me that if I wanted to see the GBR, I should go now, because it will be gone in a few years. So his undergraduate daughter doing Marine Biology at JCU told him.
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Again read the last sentence of Seasonal Variation from CSIRO Cape Grim. The SH is a co2 NET SINK.
So where’s our billions of $ REPARATIONS?
“Seasonal variation”
“Carbon dioxide concentrations show seasonal variations (annual cycles) that vary according to global location and altitude. Several processes contribute to carbon dioxide annual cycles: for example, uptake and release of carbon dioxide by terrestrial plants and the oceans, and the transport of carbon dioxide around the globe from source regions (the Northern Hemisphere is a net source of carbon dioxide, the Southern Hemisphere a net sink)”.
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Keep hammering away at it Nev, you never know some day, maybe, our betters and even the hoi polloi may have an “epiy-fannie” moment and latch on to thought that Australia is in Carbon Sink territory. Hope springs eternal.
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If you believed all the BS you would think that we would all be boiling and dissolving in a a hot, strongly acidic ocean.
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But David, according to the Guterres of the UN the oceans are boiling. Measured temperatures of 100F. And everybody knows that salt water corrodes as does the air living near the sea front.
As you say those who BS about these things really only ever BS because that is all they have.
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I let AI do it. There aren’t too many texts in Old English. The dictionary people seem to reinforce their own opinions. And historically these are the people who defined the new spelling.
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Boiling oceans was an obvious mistake. 100 was announced as the highest temperature on record in shallow water on the coat of Florida. President Guyerres immediately announced Boiling Oceans. And no one disagreed! Even though 100F is not 100C!
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Eggs can have a pH of about 8.1 depending on how fresh or how long they’ve been stored for.
The ocean having a pH of 8.1 is no more scary than an egg is.
But I bet a lot of Lefties are scared of eggs too, many are vegans afterall.
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Oh no. The oceans are turning into eggs. How will the fish be able to swim? Say it isn’t so.
Whatever happened to land rights for gay whales? The world is going backwards.
I’m off to Dubai today. I’ve seen the pictures of an A380 taking off carrying enough people to fill a small football stadium. I shouldn’t have looked because I don’t believe something that heavy can possibly get up to speed on the runway let alone off the ground and fly not far below the speed of sound. But I hope to be proven wrong.
It kind of shows that I’ve got time on my hands doesn’t it?
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I’ve flown many times in an A380. It’s quieter and more comfortable than the 777. Our eldest son has been flying them for at least 13 and 1/2 years. They are amazing machines. They are HUGE!
I hope you enjoy your flight and the heat in Dubai should have moderated a bit now in November. Indeed, there was a cold wind one November that made swimming unnattractive.
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So why do the Dutch Engineers find no acceleration in SLR over the last 125 years? And still just 1.5 mm a year or about 150 mm by 2125 or 6 inches.
Perhaps this means that the oceans are not warming and are helping to absorb more co2?
Again, why do our stupid pollies, MSM, Banks, Big business etc BELIEVE the IPCC and “boiling oceans Guterras?”
https://dailydeclaration.org.au/2025/09/04/no-global-acceleration-in-sea-level-rise-exaggerated-predictions-by-ipcc/
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Not sure that BELIEVE is quite the right word.
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Also the tide gauge installed by Sir John Franklin on The Isle of the Dead, Tasmania when he was Governor of Tasmania and before he went off to command the expedition to explore the Arctic Ice melting.**
John Daly mentioned this tide gauge before his death in 2004. Noted that there was no change in high tide.
** Like many expeditions to find ice melting, this ended in disaster.
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Why would the corals have to adapt in the first place?
A change in CO2 of 50% over 250 years is a tiny change in pH of +0.17.
There is so much unscientific presumption in all this? Has anyone actually proven the change in pH of +0.17 is due to CO2 from ancient leaves, that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is also exclusively from old leaves.
It’s all so much wild conjecture, starting with presidential candidate and non scientist Al Gore in 1988. And you are still not allowed question his unproven science.
A decade ago I remember the girls in bikinis on the beach in beautiful tropical Bora Bora (Tahiti) with an American research program, pumping CO2 into fish tanks and taking notes and measuring things.
It was just so silly, unscientific, ridiculous. But I could see the attraction.
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TdeF:
How about a link? I thought all Climate “Scientists” weren’t attractive.
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Catch the beautiful Windstar yacht out of Papeete. And observe science at work on the beaches. But you could stay home and go to Cairns. Prof Peter Ridd could tell you about the fabulous research on the Great Barrier Reef. It sure beats ice cores in Antarctica. Who said science had to involved suffering?
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Saying the world’s oceans are acidifying is just as dumb as saying they’re boiling. The oceans are buffered and have always changed within a narrow range. Plus talking about the average ocean pH is just as ridiculous as talking about an average earth temperature. There are no such things, because it varies widely over the whole globe. During the Joe Rogan interview Richard Lindzen made that point firmly. That a world temperature is only useful to compare planets- that’s it. That’s why the concept of global warming had no base. Some areas were warming , others cooling. If you looked hard enough, the same trend would no doubt apply to ocean pH. Some areas increasing , some areas decreasing.
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And where you have real data on world temperatures, it is ignored. Look at this graph from Prof Carl Otto Weiss and his mathematics friends. All derived from actual thermometer readings in the ONLY place where they have been available for the last 250 years! And this looks nothing like the alleged graph of the ‘world temperature’ which in turn looks very little like the graph of CO2. Doesn’t anyone ask how anyone knew a precise temperature for Antarctica in 1750, a continent as big as North America?
The very concept of a single planetary temperature is not very useful even between planets. Consider that venus has a day as long as the orbit, so it is 900C on one side in an atmosphere of 98% CO2. That’s where James Hansen, Al Gore’s friend derived his ideas on Global Warming. This drama of the world ending for a tiny +2C is just incredible. You could not even feel this! But it is costing $20Trillion a year and so making many people rich, especially the Chinese.
And there are millions of climate ‘researchers’ making a living from trying to prove that man made CO2 driven rapid global warming is a real thing. Or advising how to avoid the sky falling and how much it will cost. We even have a minister for Climate. How crazy is that?
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Not only that- there’s around 4000 people working in that Federal Department (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) that he represents. 5000 in the Victorian government equivalent. None of those people are affecting the climate (because you cant), improving my environment or making my electricity/water any cheaper.
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Here’s the Co2 Coalition’s fact 6 about co2 levels over the last 600 million years.
Today we live in the lowest co2 levels in the last 600 million years and during the last full glaciation (115 K to 13 K years ago) co2 levels dropped to 180 ppm, just 30 ppm above when plant life starts to die.
When will they wake up and follow the facts? Here’s their quote—-
“Contrary to the oft-repeated mantra that today’s CO2 concentration is unprecedentedly high, our current geologic period, the Quaternary, has seen the lowest average levels of carbon dioxide since the Precambrian. Though CO2 concentrations briefly peaked 320,000 years ago at 300 ppm, the average for the past 800,000 years was 230 ppm (Luthi 2008). The average CO2 concentration in the preceding 600 million years was more than 2,600 ppm, nearly seven times our current amount and 2.5 times the worst case predicted by the IPCC for 2100. Our current geologic period (Quaternary) has the lowest average CO2 concentration in more than 600 million years”.
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Here’s the co2 Coalition Scientist’s quote plus the graphs for co2 levels over the last 600 million years.
Today’s co2 levels are very low and our temperatures are much lower than our early Holocene and the much warmer Eemian interglacial.
In fact the previous Eemian was 8 c warmer than our Holocene and much warmer than today in 2025.
And Eemian SLs were 6 to 9 metres higher than today. See Wiki, etc.
So why can’t they follow the facts and let us build energy security and then national security?
https://co2coalition.org/facts/our-current-geologic-period-quaternary-has-the-lowest-average-co2-levels-in-the-last-600-million-years/
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The Younger Dryas cut off the head of Holocene, which lasted a couple of thousand years, and I wonder what happened to CO2.
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CO2 levels would have remained buoyant during the YD.
‘While the Northern Hemisphere cooled, considerable warming occurred in the Southern Hemisphere. Sea surface temperatures were warmer by 0.3–1.9 °C (0.5–3.4 °F), and Antarctica, South America (south of Venezuela) and New Zealand all experienced warming. The net temperature change was a relatively modest cooling of 0.6 °C (1.1 °F). Temperature changes of the Younger Dryas lasted 1,150–1,300 years.
‘According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Younger Dryas ended around 11,700 years ago, although some research places it closer to 11,550 years ago.
‘The end of Younger Dryas was also abrupt: in previously cooled areas, warming to previous levels took place over 50–60 years.’ (wiki)
That is what I call global warming.
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I can state with complete confidence that chart C in the panel in the article is not Sea Surface temperature.
The reason I know this is that sea surface temperature in the Coral Sea has an annual range of about 4C.
I doubt the Coral knows what the anomalous temperature is.
Now think if they showed a band that ranges from 25C to 26C at lower level to fixed temperature of 30C at the top, it might start giving readers an idea that oceans cannot sustain a temperature above 30C. Once that realisation strikes, the whole climate change scare ends.
The whole article is BS and should have never got past a reviewer
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And I have a concern that the Great Barrier Reef, the size of Germany, is 1500 miles/2300km North/South. And varies 4C from top to bottom anyway!
So treating it as single entity with a single temperature is ridiculous.
It’s so big it has inland lakes and seas and rivers. And I would assume wild temperature variations with water depth and varying
susceptibilities to ocean height in tropical areas. Plus it is so big, there are many likely varieties and families of polyps which convey great
temperature resilience.
The universal problem though is being exposed for any time to the tropical sun in occasionally shallow tidal water, which likely causes bleaching. The idea
that it is caused by slight water temperature variations is pure conjecture. And the recovery speed is likely very short, as has been proven.
It’s all a beat up by leftist politicians including Barack Hussein Obama who moaned about the Great Barrier Reef not being there for his grandchildren. This was absolute piffle, ridiculous and he knew it. It’s amazing how the Socialists and Fascists and Communists, all first cousins philosophically, manipulate public opinion to get their way. I am just pleased that Obama’s desperate moves to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons have been thwarted. And I wonder if his Muslim faith was Shiite like Iran and like 7% of Kenyan black muslims.
I doubt anyone means what they say when the predict the imminent demise of the Great Barrier Reef through slight surface water temperature variations and I am amazed that the UN considers Australia is responsible for its maintenance, colours, polyps and abundant marine life. When does the UN stop lecturing the world while living on billions in handouts for doing absolutely nothing?
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Warning – do not try to protect tourism by promoting your Great Barrier Reef, unless you comply with climate politics and associated contributions to the cost of the exercise in futility, to tackle a problem that is doesn’t exist outside of natural Earth Cycles bad publicity will be your punishment and targeting tourism climate change.
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“to tackle a problem that is doesn’t exist outside of natural Earth Cycles”
This statement reveals the underlying conceit of the now dissembling great Age of Science.
Same humans, but with better more dangerous tools.
Windmill and solar farms are just new religious temples.
Priest stand in front and declare this will save us from ‘natural Earth Cycles’.
Perhaps I’m wrong.
The ‘progressive’ learned and reputedly educated people that I was taught were leading us to an enlightened future, appear to be becoming ever more detached from reality.
One need only look at nearly, if not all of the great cities of Western world and see their obvious escalating decline.
NYC, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, probably London and Paris, now un-savable.
All with progressive leadership which stands before its’ citizens and denies what all can see.
I sit in one at this moment.
Near a major STEM Uni.
Which is nothing but a fantasy fortress surrounded by a near lawlessness.
(There are literally signs reminding the adult high achieving students to look both ways before crossing the street. Not that outlandish considering the police barely enforce traffic law, much less criminal law.)
I admit Science is an improved religion, producing more complex stuff.
But a religion nevertheless.
Appearing to be evolving to a similar nastiness as its’ predecessors.
And an exercise in futility.
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As well as the tiny lowering of pH, the tiny increase in dissolved carbon dioxide means a tiny increase in the concentration of carbonate ions – which means a tiny reduction in the solubility of calcium carbonate. I’d suggest that natural ecosystems tend to be very well buffered against change by complementary processes such as this.
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