Earth's Coral Reef Catastrophe

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Earth's Coral Reef Catastrophe

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Now Public Contributor E. Lizardo
August 14, 2008 4:20 PM

ARTICLE:

Corals and Geological History

We all know what ocean coral is. It's beautiful stuff. For many, when we see a specimen somewhere in a curio shop our first impulse is to examine it closely, touch it, handle it, observe it from all sides, feel it's weight and balance. Coral comes in many colors, shapes and sizes. 'Very Organic' is the way many would describe it, for indeed coral often brings to mind images of exotic vegetation, ferns and prehistoric plant life.

Without doubt ocean coral has been around a long, long time. Just how long seems to be a matter of some debate. The Global Coral Reef Alliance, certainly a credible organization, says the following

Sounds to this writer as if the reefs have been with us several million years at least.

Catastrophe Theory

When the word 'catastrophe' is mentioned, as it has been in the title of this article for instance, people become concerned, and probably for good reason. Catastrophe, as defined in the dictionary implies some very negative connotations, up to and including sudden disaster. But the point of this article is not to instill fear and dread into the hearts of readers but rather to present a calm and rational review of the issues involved with the sudden decline of Earth's ocean corals. Hence, I now introduce a decidedly unemotional definition of catastrophe from the technical perspective
 

All dynamical systems follow trajectories, or paths through some space, in a manner of speaking. An example might be the trajectory of a light airplane as it flies through the sky overhead, sometimes moving in a straight line, sometimes banking either to the right or to the left, climbing up, descending, et cetera. Depending on the pilot's skill an observer might even be treated to the thrill of a well executed loop-de-loop, or some other amazing performance.

Technically speaking, as long as the airplane's position traces out a smooth trajectory which stays within certain boundaries it is considered to be in a stable orbit.

Of course the dynamical system in our example above is the airplane itself. At another level the system could be considered not only the airplane, but local atmospheric conditions, other entities in the immediate vacinity, even including the crowd on the ground watching below. To keep the presentation simple we have only focused in on the airplane itself, but the scope could be changed according to the requirements of the observer.

Bifurcation means to branch. A bifurcation in a stable orbit will cause the system to behave in very unpredictable ways. In the airplane example above such a bifurcation might occur after a very small change in fuel level when tank goes from being very nearly empty to completely empty ...

The Widespread Death of Earth's Ocean Corals

Fifteen years ago or so I recall hearing some seemingly unimportant news reports that a coral reef somewhere in the Carribean, for instance was suffering from the effects of too much tourism. I may have heard reports of a reef somewhere else which had been showing signs of poor health perhaps due to an increase in nearby industrial pollution. These reports mentioned something I had really never considered up to that point - ocean coral reefs are the rain forests, the breeding and feeding grounds of aquatic ocean species, the base of the pyrimid of our planet's salt-water ecosystems. I was reminded these reefs were more important than just interesting places to scuba dive, mere venues for finding souvenirs with which to stock the cabinets back at home.

That the ocean's coral reefs were more than just a bit ill here and there, and were actaully dying off en masse worldwide, I was not aware of until only a few years ago. Here's what one source had to say about the situation in 1998

The following is from a more recent report published in 2003

What really got me thinking about all this was news on web-sites and in many papers this spring about the shocking disappearance of the west coast Salmon. In fact the situation is so severe that there was a total ban on salmon fishing imposed there this year.

Of course the west coast of North America also happens to be the east coast of the Pacific Ocean, the southern part of which was the location of quite a great deal of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing during the span of 35 years beginning in 1945 and continuing until its worldwide prohibition in 1980.

Just How Toxic is Plutonium?

And, if all this is not bad enough, it now appears that the Great Barrier reef off the coast of Australia, in another southern ocean is experiencing it's own local catastrophe as well

Implications

Many of the references I reviewed and even one of those cited for this article makes the case for the cause of impending coral reef extinction as being global warming. As cited above, corals have been with us for millions of years. During that very large span of time there has been a continuous cycle of ice-ages and subsequent thawings. The resultant cycles in water temperatures of plus or minus a few degrees celsius have never killed coral reefs off before. The only difference between those ancient times and now seems to be all that plutonium fallout from the weapons testing which now is in the water.

In summary I would offer my apologies for the unusual length of this article. People are quite busy and have little time left over for reading, especially when the subject matter is as unsettling as that presented here.

I hope this article was interesting and informative and has offered a ballanced view of the facts.