Global warming may have caused coral bleaching, scientists say

The coral bleaching observed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands over the past several weeks could be caused by global warming -- or it could just be a cycle in nature, scientists say.

Either way, it offers an unprecedented opportunity to study the recovery of bleached coral reefs, said scientists who returned Tuesday from a monthlong research cruise to Hawaii's most remote islands.

The researchers said they were surprised by the amount of bleached, or dying, coral they observed there, even though they had a clue they might find bleaching because of abnormally high water temperatures.

Though the cause of the die-off and the significance of it is not known now, it is a concern because "many though not all scientists would make the linkage between increased incidences of bleaching worldwide with the general trend to global warming," said National Marine Fisheries Service marine ecologist Jean Kenyon.

"It's hard to see this, because those reefs were thriving a couple of months before that," said Rusty Brainard, a fisheries service scientist who helped lead Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program 2002.

Because the NOWRAMP trip was in September, just after the hottest month of August, the bleaching had just occurred, Brainard said. Though researchers have been making trips to the islands for 30 years or more, this scale of bleaching has never been observed, he said.

Bleaching refers to the startlingly white coral skeleton that is exposed when the live coral and the symbiotic algae that inhabit it are dead. If the die-off is mild, sometimes the coral can regrow. But in many cases in the world, coral bleaching has proved permanent.

The three most northwest of the islands -- Kure, Midway and Pearl & Hermes atolls -- all showed significant amounts of coral bleaching, and many of the killed coral were "decades old," Kenyon said. The bleaching seemed to be more severe in shallower water. Maro Reef and Lisianski Island, farther south, seemed to have less severe bleaching, but it extended to lower depths.

In August, water temperatures in the islands were warmer than they have been since scientists started measuring them in 1981, Brainard said. The mean August temperature has been about 83.3 degrees. This year, it spiked to 85.46 degrees.

The temperatures are actually cooler than in other locations, like the Caribbean, where coral has also been bleached, Brainard said.

It appears to mean that although the northwest corals live in cooler waters, they still are sensitive to even these slight changes in temperature, he said.

Scientists on the trip work for a variety of federal, state and education institutions. One product of their research will be more information for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, a temporary umbrella agency established by former President Clinton, and the planned National Marine Sanctuary that some hope to establish in its place over the next few years.

"The coral bleaching observed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands over the past several weeks could be caused by global warming -- or it could just be a cycle in nature, scientists say."

"May be" and "could be"?

The first litigation against these looneys will define their liberal use of the English language.

When the first suit against them is held to be true, they will then have to provide quantifiable statistical proof of this crap they spout, and it will be impossible.

These "Chicken Little" organizations will be paying dearly for the atmosphere they have created...

...said scientists who returned Tuesday from a monthlong research cruise to Hawaii's most remote islands.

I want a gig like that. Which government agency forked out taxpayer money for this?

With a modest research grant (plus, of course, a travel allowance, living expenses, and funds for, ummmm, a "research assistant"), I could generate a similarly useful report. Say, for example, on tan lines under various climatological conditions (within a temperature range of 78 to 90 degrees F); or maybe on the global warming effects on the ice meltage rate of my piña coladas.

It matters not who the author is of "original source material", and after visiting a few infantile short sighted websites, I would bet any 7-12 year old would be able to generate a "world class" paper on the "evils and (fill in the blank)" of the "(fill in the blank, like a name of any corporation your teacher doesn't like, or whose divorced husband used to work for)" and it will be accepted with open arms.

The mentally deficient elite think children are the intelligence of the future, let them continue to believe so...

The use of chlorine to "stun" individual aquarium fish is another source, and if the "researchers" knew where the international fishers were who used this type of illegal method , then they may have concentrated their own "investigation" at the places the chlorine was used for years for the acquisition of aquarium fish.

OK, enough of the onomatopoeia run on.

The use of chlorine has been practiced in the Philippines for decades until late, so the findings in the northern isles would be of no surprise.

The harvesting of any sought after item is now rampant...

Stipulated. Too obscure my irony, I suppose. First, they don't ship chlorine or chlorinated chemicals in supertankers, but generally in much smaller pressurised containers.

I was just getting after the 'global-warming-causes-everything-and-we're-all-gonna-die' dildos. (dildoes?) And the dildettes, too.

If any containers of the chlorine are found in any numbers, be they large or small then it will open the case on the fools who are doing the dirty deed, if in fact that is the case.

I would bet a couple of good (independant) investigators who are familiar with this type of coral damage could track this down poste haste, unlike the Ecoboys and girls who wouldn't know where to start, unless it was their HQ of funding with their marching/swimming orders...

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