January 17, 2022

Barrier Reef islands are GROWING

Warmists are always prophecying that Pacific islands will go underwater as a result of global warming of the ocean, with coral cays being particularly vulnerable.  

But actual evidence below shows us that the opposite is happening.  Coral cays are in fact GROWING.   Any effect of global warming is more than cancelled out by other processes.  

Basing predictions on just one of many potentially influential factors is dumb and very unscientific

A scientific field trip to a small group of deserted islands on the Great Barrier Reef has its roots in a 1928 expedition and has implications for the future of the reef.

A team of researchers from the University of Wollongong led by Associate Professor Sarah Hamylton visited the Howick islands, about 130 kilometres north-east of Cooktown, in far northern Queensland, last year and found the mangroves were expanding.

“What’s particularly interesting for a lot of the islands in the Howick group that we are mapping and investigating is that they are growing,” Associate Professor Hamylton says.

“Most of the islands we have looked at are predominantly made up of broken up corals, which waves then sweep and deposit on the island. This coral sediment is responsible for building up the islands. Add in mangrove forests and you can see that these islands are actually growing. Some mangrove forests are marching forwards by up to five to six metres per year,” she explains.

Associate Professor Hamylton says the group was able to compare aerial images taken by a drone with hand-drawn maps created in 1928 and photographs from 1974.

“This research was started back in 1928 with an expedition known as the Great Barrier Reef Low Isles Expedition.”

In July 1928, British and Australian scientists undertook a journey to investigate the biggest coral reef in the world. They spent 13 months wandering reefs and islands, looking at ocean conditions and growth rate of corals.

“Two members of the Great Barrier Reef Low Isles Expedition were particularly interested in how old the reef islands around here are and how were they formed,” says Associate Professor Hamylton.

“The researchers observed ocean waves and tidal currents transporting loose coral sediments derived from the underlying reef platform and depositing these to form the islands. Sometimes these cays or islands may remain unconsolidated and move around with the seasons. But over time, the larger cays built up to be above the sea level and become covered in vegetation, which stabilises them into more permanent features.”

Forty-five years later, in 1973-74, another group of researchers, the Royal Society and Universities of Queensland Expedition, decided to partially retrace the footsteps of the researchers from the 1928 expedition. They concentrated on remapping the Howick group, as well as other islands further north, in more detail. By remapping the islands and collecting more data on mangrove forest vegetation, the researchers believed they could inspire subsequent studies.

The information caught the eye of Associate Professor Hamylton who has a keen interest in geomorphology, which examines how landscapes such as the islands on the Great Barrier Reef form and are shaped over time.

“When I looked over the maps from 1928, then some aerial photos from 1974, I then compared these maps and images with recent satellite imagery from the internet and could plainly see that the islands had increased in size. Especially since 1974.”

https://www.smh.com.au/national/magic-mangroves-a-blue-carbon-buffer-for-great-barrier-reef-20220105-p59m0t.html

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