Read here. A new study by coral reef experts was just published regarding the health of Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The concern worldwide, and especially in Australia, is that human activities are destroying the GBR. Global warming alarmists have claimed, hysterically, that global warming was causing the GBR coral to die and the reef to shrink.
As Osborne et al. determined in their study, the GBR is alive and well in contrast to the non-scientific, alarmist hysteria.
"The authors write that "coral decline is frequently described as ongoing with the integrity and persistence of the reef system threatened by a number of different stressors,"...that "climate change is widely regarded as the single greatest threat to coral reef ecosystems."...they decided to quantify the trend in live coral cover of the GBR over the critical temporal interval of 1995-2009, which climate alarmists contend was the warmest decade and a half experienced by the planet to that point in time over the past millennium...four researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science report that "coral cover increased in six sub-regions and decreased in seven sub-regions," with some of the changes "being very dynamic and others changing little." But with respect to the entire reef system, they report that "overall regional coral cover was stable (averaging 29% and ranging from 23% to 33% across years) with no net decline between 1995 and 2009." And to emphasize this fact, they forthrightly state that they found "no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995."" [Kate Osborne, Andrew M. Dolman, Scott C. Burgess, Kerryn A. Johns 2011: PLoS ONE]
Additional coral reef and peer-reviewed postings.
