The Foundation has released the following response to an article in the Weekend Australian on Saturday 19th December, 2009, which claimed scientists were "crying wolf" over the predicted demise of the Great Barrier Reef due to temperature.
Dear Sir
The article, “Scientists ‘crying wolf’ over coral”, which dominated the front page of The Weekend Australian (19 December 2009) claimed to have exposed a deep division in the scientific community as to whether climate change poses a threat to the corals of the Great Barrier Reef.
This is wrong. No such division exists and no one with a serious interest in the fate of the Great Barrier Reef would suggest that the personal opinion of someone, with few qualifications or experience relevant to the topic, and who has not published a single paper successfully disputing the current threat that climate change presents to the Reef, creates such a controversy.
True scientific credence and debate can only come from the orthodox scientific process, whereby men and women with appropriate qualifications undertake extensive and methodical trials and analysis, form conclusions and publish them in carefully refereed journals. Here, they are scrutinised, criticised and tested with the result that they are disproved, modified, or accepted. This is the same science that allows us to successfully rely on modern aircraft or medicine. The rigour of this process is in stark contrast to the one likely to have grounded the personal opinion conveyed on your front page.
Serious scientific opinion is now overwhelming that sea temperatures will rise by 2 degrees Celsius by the middle to late part of this century. The evidence is also overwhelming that exposing corals to water temperatures 2 degrees above their local summer maxima, for anything over a month, will start to kill them. This is the phenomenon of coral bleaching.
While it is true that corals have adapted to local water temperatures – be they in the Yemen or at Magnetic Island - this has been achieved over hundreds, if not thousands, of years, rather than the years and decades inherent in the pace of climate change. The problem with the current rapid rate of change is that it simply much faster than the time scales in which corals can adapt.
This puts the recovery of the small percentage of reefs in the Keppel Islands in its true context: the increased frequency of episodes of bleaching and mortality, as a result of increasing water temperatures, will create conditions in which the coral’s natural resilience, strong as that may appear to be, is very likely to be overwhelmed. The experience of a large number of scientific groups from around the world that have been studying coral reefs responding to climate impacts is that corals simply cannot bleach on a frequent basis and come back, again and again.
This year, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation published a report it had commissioned from Oxford Economics, which conservatively put the cost to the national economy of a total and permanent bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef at almost $40 billion. This means that Australian jobs, businesses and livelihoods will be lost, alongside environmental damage of massive proportions.
The scientists continue to explore the causes and effects of the upward rise in temperatures on delicate ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef and this endeavour is absolutely crucial to the Reef’s survival in the face of the climate change threat. The Foundation therefore is also working with the research community, government and its business and industry partners on developing strategies which will assist the all-important adaptation process so that the Reef has the best chance we can give it.
Now is not the time to give the impression of dissent where none seriously exists. There is a great deal of important work that can and must be done without delay.
Dr John Schubert, Chairman
Professor Paul Greenfield AO, Chairman, International Scientific Advisory Committee
Mrs Judy Stewart, Managing Director
Great Barrier Reef Foundation
For further information go to The Reef and Climate Change.