John Varner wrote:
> http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/carribean-reefs-face-severe-summer-threat/?partner=rss&emc=rss
> <http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/carribean-reefs-face-severe-summer-threat/?partner=rss&emc=rss>
> 2009 ocean surface temps throughout much of the Caribbean the warmest on
> record.
>
> - John
>
>
>
>

Reef Rescue has been plotting temperatures at the Gulfstream reef (not
surface)in SE Florida since 1999. Normal variations are +/- 2 degrees F.
excluding thermoclines.

Current readings are smack dab on the trend centerline following a
couple months of cooler than normal water.

Quite substantial variations in temperature from hour to hour in any
location are normal, and quite substantial variations in temperature
from location to any other location more than a few dozen yards away are
also normal.

The report's inclusion of coral disease, linking it with water temp, is
probably erroneous. The increase in coral diseases is almost certainly
pollution related, and may be caused by increasing hormones in the
pollution stream.

It should also be noted that most bleaching follows spikes in
temperature and will peak after the normal summer temperature spike.

Further, certain coral species bleaching has no corelation whatsoever
with water temperature. For example, M. meandrites, an abundant local
species, bleaching peaks on 10/29 regardless of water temperatures.
recovery/re-pigmentation follows the peak by another 35 days, making the
complete bleaching and recovery cycle about 70 days from beginning
(equinox)to end.

Locally, we have come to suspect NOAA scientists who we have found to be
moonlighting for the local sewer plants. We call them "biostitutes".

mike

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