From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Paul Kolk

The usual disinformation from the BBC!

Parts of the Great Barrier Reef have suffered the largest annual decline in coral cover since records began nearly 40 years ago, according to a new report.

Northern and southern branches of the sprawling Australian reef both suffered their most widespread coral bleaching, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), external found.

Reefs have been battered in recent months by tropical cyclones and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish that feast on coral, but heat stress driven by climate change is the predominant reason, AIMS said.

AIMS warns the habitat may reach a tipping point where coral cannot recover fast enough between catastrophic events and faces a “volatile” future.

AIMS surveyed the health of 124 coral reefs between August 2024 and May 2025. It has been performing surveys since 1986.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3pp52m65o

The rest of the article is the usual BBC climate doom agenda.

Only con merchants would claim any significance when surveys only began in 1986. And, strangely, the BBC forgot to mention the fact that coral cover was at a record high the year before.

As usual, Dr Peter Ridd provides the full story in the Australian. It’s behind a paywall, but here is his account on Facebook:

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My article from The Australian this morning below. But first, AIMS are agreeing that the reef is coming off record highs so the small drop should be viewed in that context. However, much of the media is still reporting the drop as a disaster.

The latest 2025 statistics on the amount of coral on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) show the reef is still doing fine despite having six allegedly cataclysmic coral bleaching events in the last decade. There should be no coral at all if those reports were true.

The normalised coral cover dropped from a record high number of 0.36 down to 0.29, but there is still twice as much coral as in 2012. The raw coral cover number for all the last five years has been higher than any of the previous years since records began in 1985. However, when one considers the uncertainty margin, the present figures are not significantly different from many of the previous years.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science collects coral data on around 100 of the 3000 individual coral reefs of the GBR. Analysis of the data at smaller scales shows the GBR is doing what it always does – change. There is a constant dynamic as cyclones, starfish plagues and bleaching events dramatically kill lots of coral in small areas, while it quietly regrows elsewhere.

Guess whether the ‘science’ institutions emphasise the death or regrowth.

The institutions often justify this embarrassingly high coral cover as just “weed coral”. But the type of coral that has exploded over the last few years is acropora, which is the most susceptible to hot-water bleaching. How can we have record amounts of the type of coral that should have been killed, again and again, from bleaching? The acropora takes five to ten years to regrow if it is killed.

There are two conclusions that must be drawn. First, not much coral has been killed by climate change bleaching – at least not compared to the capacity of coral to regrow. Second, the science institutions are not entirely trustworthy, and are in need of major reform.

And not just with regard to GBR or climate science. It is well recognised that most areas of scientific study are suffering a problem of reliability, which is damaging the reputation of science itself. It is well accepted that around half of the recent peer-reviewed science literature is flawed. Is there any other profession with such a high failure rate?

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As he points out, this year’s cover is the fourth highest on record.

The BBC do comment:

In the latest AIMS survey results, the most affected coral species were the Acropora, which are susceptible to heat stress and a favoured food of the crown-of-thorns starfish.

“These corals are the fastest to grow and are the first to go,” AIMS research lead Dr Mike Emslie told ABC News.

“The Great Barrier Reef is such a beautiful, iconic place, it’s really, really worth fighting for. And if we can give it a chance, it’s shown an inherent ability to recover,” he said.

Which is of course a no-brainer. Well established species, coral or otherwise, tend to be hardier. The rapid growth of Acropora in recent years was always going to be susceptible to rapid bleaching too.

The reef as a whole is clearly extremely healthy, with greater coverage than for most of the last forty years.

But you won’t see that on the BBC.