{"id":317211,"date":"2024-04-10T18:04:41","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T16:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=317211"},"modified":"2024-04-10T18:04:43","modified_gmt":"2024-04-10T16:04:43","slug":"davies-reef-part-2-central-great-barrier-reef-april-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=317211","title":{"rendered":"Davies Reef \u2013 Part 2, Central Great Barrier Reef, April 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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From Jennifer Marohasy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0jennifer<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Wednesday, after diving Wheeler, Lynch and Chicken reefs<\/a> we made it to Davies.  I particularly wanted to visit this reef as the Australian Institute of Science (AIMS) has a weather station here at Davies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart put his drone up and got photographs of the weather station and its immediate surrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The AIMS weather station at Davies reef, and this arial suggests that this area of reef is dominated by algae presumably growing over areas that were once coral, with sandy patches in-between.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is no evidence of recent bleaching from this aerial photograph, but rather patches of reef that appear to have been lost to brown algae.   It looks devastating from the air, the extent of the infestation of algae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AIMS records temperatures at different depth at some reefs with the temperature data for Davies at a depth of 4 metres extending back to 1991, providing 33 years of information on water temperatures. The warmest summer in this record is in the year 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Australian Institute of Marine Science temperature data recorded at Davies reef at a depth of 4 metres. This data indicates that temperatures cycle with the seasons. This data, through to the end of March, does not show global warming.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

AIMS also collects water temperature data down to 18.5 metres at Davies. This data also shows temperatures cycling within an approximate 6C range. \u00a0 This data does not suggest that this summer has been particularly warm \u2013 at least not in this central region relative to the last 18 summers, which is the extent of the publicly available temperature record at this depth for Davies reef.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Water temperature data collected by AIMS at a depth of 18 metres, showing very marked changes with each season, showing cycles of warming and cooling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer at Davies, temperatures don\u2019t appear to have got unusually warm \u2013 with the time series data from both 4 metres and 18.5 metres extending right up to 28th<\/sup> March 2024; right up until the end of summer and some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the reef crest, at Davies, as for Lynch, was looking devastatingly bare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jennifer Marohasy diving down to the reef crest, with all the coral gone and the wall also bare. Davies Reef, Wednesday April 3rd, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tropical cyclone Kirrily hit on 25th<\/sup> January; nearly 10 weeks ago.  It has scoured the shallow flat top of this reef, and it seems also the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As there is no coral, presumably following pummelling by the cyclone, specifically TC Kirrily, well, there is nothing to bleach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some depth it is the well attached corals that have survived and show some bleaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Davis reef, Wednesday 3rd April, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, we did find some large healthy plate corals at a different section of the reef crest that have survived, and they are a good dark brown meaning they are replete with zooxanthellae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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