Tag: Palau

Coral Climate Absurdity: Spending Millions Breeding Heat Tolerance Which Already Exists in Nature

Persian Gulf extremophile corals can tolerate temperatures far higher – and lower – than open ocean corals. But we totally have to spend millions breeding new corals which can replicate this feat.

A researcher in a lab coat and safety goggles uses a pipette to extract a sample from a coral in a glass aquarium containing sand and various laboratory equipment.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Persian Gulf extremophile corals can tolerate temperatures far higher – and lower – than open ocean corals. But we totally have to spend millions breeding new corals which can replicate this feat.

Scientists hope planting Palau’s ‘super corals’ will save reefs from climate change

By Hugo Hodge
Sat 6 Sep

Palau’s idyllic waters hide an experiment that scientists hope will save the world’s reefs from climate change-induced collapse.

At an outer reef, ceramic cribs are holding thousands of baby corals growing underwater.

They’re “super corals”, selectively bred to survive hotter ocean temperatures.

And they’re providing hope in global efforts to stop marine heatwaves from wiping out reefs.

…

“Hopefully they’ll be able to grow and we’ll be able to tell if they’re able to withstand the next coral bleaching event here in Palau,” Lauren Piot, a French-American researcher at the Palau International Coral Reef Centre (PICRC), says.

…

However, there are doubts they’re being deployed fast enough and can withstand increasingly severe marine heatwaves into the future.

…Read more:

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-06/palau-corals-selective-breeding-climate-change-reefs/105728666

Back in the real world, such corals already exist, and the scientists who study them have already proposed such corals could be used to save other reefs if global warming ever threatens corals.

MARCH 3, 2015

Hot Water Corals in the Persian Gulf Could Help Save the World’s Reefs

The species may hold genetic clues that could help reefs worldwide adapt to warmer ocean temperatures

BY MICHAEL CASEY

Just down the road from the world’s tallest tower, in the shadow of monster sand dunes, marine biologists from around the world clamored onboard a boat for a visit to some of the Persian Gulf’s coral reefs.

…

Most coral reefs in temperate climates can withstand temperatures only as high as 29 degrees Celsius before they bleach—a process in which corals expel their symbiotic algae living in their tissue, causing them to turn white and increasing their vulnerability to disease and death. Corals in the Persian Gulf reefs, however, typically tolerate temperatures as high as 36 degrees C during summer and as low as 13 degrees C in winter. “These temperatures exceed what we are expecting anywhere else in the world in the tropics over the next century,” says John Burt, a marine biologist at a branch of New York University in the Emirates, who led the reef tour in 2012. Burt also helped organize an international conference in February on Persian Gulf reefs at NYU, which brought together 250 scientists. The Persian Gulf corals “offer hope,” he says. Some of the genetic mechanisms they use could help others survive these extreme temperatures.

…Read more: 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hot-water-corals-in-the-persian-gulf-could-help-save-the-world-s-reefs/

Persian Gulf corals can handle temperature extremes, along the pollution and turbidity which comes from being located in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. But I’m sure, you know, they’re too Persian or something, because it is obviously absolutely necessary for well funded reef scientists to ignore natural reservoirs of extremophile corals and spend millions of taxpayer dollars breeding their own varieties.

Do I need a /sarc tag?

Before you think it’s just Australian money being blown on this absurd and pointless project, the Biden administration also threw some cash at South Pacific coral resilience projects, including Palau. I mean why wouldn’t they? Biden threw taxpayer cash at everything else with the word “climate” in it.

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Pacific coral reef shows historic increase in thermal tolerance

Corals can adapt to changing conditions, once again confounding the serial climate doom-mongers. The full article tries to link in references to ‘carbon emissions’, ‘climate change’ etc. which have no definable reference to the actual findings. The point is, nature can be adaptable, contrary to some alarmist expectations.

From Tallbloke’s Talkshop

August 22, 2023 by oldbrew

Coral reef [image credit: Toby Hudson / Wikipedia]

Corals can adapt to changing conditions, once again confounding the serial climate doom-mongers. The full article tries to link in references to ‘carbon emissions’, ‘climate change’ etc. which have no definable reference to the actual findings. The point is, nature can be adaptable, contrary to some alarmist expectations.
– – –


Coral reefs in one part of the Pacific Ocean have likely adjusted to higher ocean temperatures which could reduce future bleaching impacts of climate change, new research reveals.

A Newcastle University-led study focused on the Pacific Island nation of Palau and has shown that historic increases in the thermal tolerance of coral reefs are possible, says Eurekalert.

The results demonstrate how this capacity could reduce future bleaching impacts if global carbon emissions are cut down. [Talkshop comment – corals are in the sea, not the air].

Drawing on decades of field observations, the scientists modelled many possible future coral bleaching trajectories for Palauan reefs, each with a different simulated rate of thermal tolerance enhancement.

They found that if coral thermal tolerance continues to rise throughout the 21st century at the most-likely historic rate, significant reductions in bleaching impacts are possible.

The findings reveal that the thermal tolerance of corals in Palau has likely increased at a rate of 0.1 °C per decade since the late 1980s. This increase suggests that natural mechanisms, such as genetic adaptation or acclimatization of corals or their symbiotic microalgae, could have contributed to the enhancement of coral thermal tolerance.

Study co-author Prof. Peter Mumby of the University of Queensland and Palau International Coral Reef Center reflects that “some of the upcoming challenges will be to disentangle which mechanisms have driven these potential shifts in tolerance, and to understand the possibility of continued future increases in thermal tolerance.”

Full article here.