Dr Peter Ridd from James Cook University gave a lecture in Townsville yesterday and it was reported in The Age. Not bad given that he wasn't pushing a doom and gloom message and doesn't believe the reef is at risk from global warming. He's some of what The Age reported:
Risks to the Great Barrier Reef have been overstated and Australians should be more worried about population growth and noxious weeds, a physicist says.
Dr Peter Ridd from Townsvilles James Cook University (JCU) today challenged the widely held view that one of the world's most important natural assets is in serious decline.
He said the reef, which other scientists predict could be wiped out within 30 years due to global climate change, was in "first rate condition".
"It's probably one of the best preserved ecosystems in the whole world," Dr Ridd, of JCU's Faculty of Science, Engineering and Information Technology, said.
"I think the only place that's probably better is Antarctica, and that is because it's a long way away from any significant population centre."
His comments came only weeks after scientists warned of a new coral bleaching threat following the discovery of blanched corals off the central Queensland coast.
Dr Ridd said although the reef suffered extensive bleaching in 1998 and 2002, most of it was unaffected and the parts that were damaged "completely recovered".
"I think some of it is a beat-up and I think we've got our priorities wrong," he said.
"We have around the country some serious environmental issues associated with weeds and indeed with things like population and the growing of our cities.
"We're not worried about all these other things which are potentially far more important and definitely there, whereas you can argue about the Great Barrier Reef being in jeopardy."
Dr Ridd, who formerly worked with the Australian Institute of Marine Science - a body which has long sounded warnings about threats to the reef - said coral bleaching was an "adaptation to changing environmental temperature".
Additionally, pollution from sediment and agricultural run-off was negligible given the reef's size and how rapidly it was flushed by tides, he said.
In a draft policy paper for new environment group the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF), Peter Ridd outlines and discusses the various environmental issues he sees confronting Australia. The paper can be accessed from the home page of the AEF, click here.
I have listed nine reasons why Peter Ridd doesn't consider the reef is at risk from global warming at an earlier blog post, click here.
I didn't say a lack of publications was a clincher. And at time scientists have lots of problems publishing. Can be a conspiracy or just bad luck/tough reviewers/ornery reviewers/biased reviewers - or maybe you science is dodgy and you deserve to be blocked. Hasn't seemed to have silenced Bob any.
I'm not defending the Royal Society report so much - I'm simply saying that it appears from Googling in general and looking at a range of Google Scholar papers that there is some evidence the bulk of the worlds oceans take a very long time go round. In the order of 1000 years - so if we drop a coloured ball with zero buoyancy that moves seemlessly with the current - how long does it take to go around the loop in the next century. A tenth of the way simplistically. But can't on my envelope do all the current calculations, mixing ratios, what layers sizes are, what mixes and what doesn't, currents and pH buffering calculations to do a good job on working out surface pH from that. Relying on expert oceanographers for some modelling etc.
From my thinking except in the Atlantic our oceanic mixing is very slow compared to where the CO2 levels in the atmosphere will go in 100 years.
So I remain unsure about the assumptions on your now very worn envelope. More info needed.
Incidentally the paleo data says we have had some pretty big pH changes in geological time associated with mass extinction events. So I'm simply saying we need to look at it more closely.
It's a reasonable question.
Meanwhile yaks are still munching in the Burdekin. Eat more beef and help destock !
So limited publication is a rat, is it? So all of Bob Carters troubles trying to get his coral core data published was just evidence of a rat rather than the systematic censoring of material?
And don't you trust your own maths capacity, Phil? It isn't all that complex. So lets walk through this stuff.
1 Do you accept that a turnover does take place?
2 Do you accept that a fractional annual turnover of the whole ocean will have a greater impact on the upper layer of that ocean?
3 Do you accept that the impact of that turnover on the upper layer will be cumulative?
4 And do you accept that the scenario modelled by the Royal Society makes no provision for that cumulative effect?
There are two minor corrections I would make. The first is that the points on the PH scale are not proportionate so it is incorrect to state that a diffusion of the upper layer of five times its volume over a century would mean a drop of 5 tenths of a point when the model predicted a five tenths decline in alkalinity. But it does mean that the actual impact will be only a fifth of the predicted change.
In fact, the second correction is that a total diffusion of five times the volume of the upper layer will mean that the Co2 mixing will take place in six times that volume because the five volume turnover is in addition to the original upper layer volume.
So come on, I'm just a humble farmer with a calculator.
Ian - don't give us that b/s from a skilled artisan of the vernacular such as yourself. Perceptual positioning my arse. I'm giggling at your desperation and tactics - now I've spent some time finding you some quality references - get off your bum and give something back besides bumfluff. You've come a gutser uncritically promoting con-artists like Jack-boy. I'm starting to think your envelope needs changing as you're re-writing a lot of science from the hip. Perhaps you're a genius? Or is it a game to shaft good material simply coz you don't like it. You tell us what the overturning rates are as you don't like mine. Maybe it's two weeks.
So not playing. And it's still your shout.
(Incidentally - David was spot on ! He smelt the rat of no publications in anything mainstream. Not a clincher - just an alarm bell).
And now that you have dished up the perceptual positioning, do you have any plans to actually respond to the numbers? They were supplied by you, Phil, after all. I actually suspect the Royal Society numbers are a bit suss. All a bit too neat, really. A neat 1000 year turnover for the Pacific, another neat 250 years for the Atlantic, and another neat 100 metres for the supposed depth of Co2 mixing. Doesn't it all sound a bit too much like someone has plucked them out of their bum?
If you're interested Ian, I know an agent with some valuable plots left on the moon, great views, low risk of climate change impacts on your living standard, and no soil worries either. Consensus opinion would suggest that it's not wise to buy land on the moon, but you're not a man to be persuaded by consensus opinions or credentials.