Bob Fernley-Jones,

I am familiar with Wedener's case. As I understand it, the idea he proposed was not accepted for a number of reasons: he was a meteorologist not a geologist or geophysicist, he was German at a time when British geologists were leading the way, he published his idea in an obscure German scientific journal but mostly because he could offer no mechanism to explain how the continents could have moved in the way he proposed.

Rather than the Science Ombudsman, or Chief Scientist, making an ex-cathedra statement of truth or falsity, I would have expected a comment along these lines.

"Thank you, Mr (or Dr, as appropriate) Wegener for your ideas. I thank you for highlighting some interesting anomalies of coastline fit, distribution of fossils, and distribution of geologic terranes. I agree that these anomalies are perplexing and that yours is a particularly convincing explanation of their occurrence. One major problem with your hypothesis is that you can provide no way that these large pieces of the Earth's crust could move around in the way you assume. Hence, I must say that in the absence of any mechanism I must regard your idea as Not Proven and clearly not dismissed. Should further research give some inkling of a mechanism, your idea could be revisited. I thank you for your time and energies.

The key here is Not Proven, a position somewhere between Guilty and Acquitted and allowing a later re-opening of the question should new evidence come to hand.

Jennifer, having re-read and then read your article another time, I notice that there some significant omissions from your article about the health and well-being of the reef that the appointment of a GBReef ombudsman would not change.

Among other things there is no mention of oceanic warming, there is no mention of increased acidity due to increased oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide, there is no mention of reef damage because of dredging to allow bigger ships to load and there is no mention of damage to the reef due to navigational "accidents".

I agree that your article does focus on the possible need for a GBReef Ombudsman. The imputation that the appointment of such a person would solve all the problems confronting the reef without any further action being necessary is what I have drawn from your article.

Brian,

Perhaps, if an Ombudsman helped with the weeding-out of the bogus claims, we could find the real and pressing issues facing the GBR.

The issue of ocean acidification is gaining a lot of publicity. There is a review of the topic in a recent special issue of ICES Journal of Marine Science. From this it could be concluded that:

There has been an ‘explosion’ of research on the topic of ocean acidification, quite unprecedented in the marine sciences. This is illustrated by the exponential growth in published papers since 2000, with almost no publications on this topic back then, to now nearly 4000 papers on the topic.

There are, however, established marine scientists expressing much concern over both the methodologies used and conclusions reached in some of the most high profile published investigations.

Indeed, it is openly stated in this most recent review of the topic that detrimental impacts of ocean acidification are easily publishable, whereas results that show marginal or no effects are, in contrast, very difficult to get published in the peer-reviewed literature. This is an issue with significant public policy implications that extends well beyond ocean acidification and climate science.

I would be keen to see some data on actual changes in ocean pH at the GBR over the last 100 years. Does anyone have a good reference?

A recent study by Wei et al. 2015 (Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans) of the northern South China Sea indicates that natural decadal variations in seawater pH trump possible long-term anthropogenic effects.

Cheers,

Brian,

Quote1) “I am familiar with Wedener's case. As I understand it, the idea he proposed was not accepted for a number of reasons: he was a meteorologist not a geologist or geophysicist, he was German at a time when British geologists were leading the way”

You have just demonstrated (in a style remarkably similar to that of Agronomist earlier) that group-think and elitism in science also existed in the early 20th century. Yes, it is not new, and a topical gross example has been the case of JCU ostracising one of its professors for observing inconvenient FACTS that fall outside of the current group-think of its collegiate (the establishment or ‘consensus’).

Yes, Wegener’s primary interest was meteorology but my recollection is that he was widely talented in other fields of science and even languages. To suggest that he was incapable of making evidence-based scientific observations is very, very naïve.

Brian,

Quote 2) “Rather than the Science Ombudsman, or Chief Scientist, making an ex-cathedra statement of truth or falsity, I would have expected a comment along these lines… …One major problem with your hypothesis is that you can provide no way that these large pieces of the Earth's crust could move around in the way you assume. Hence, I must say that in the absence of any mechanism I must regard your idea as Not Proven and clearly not dismissed.”

(Penultimate word error; delete not?).

You can’t be serious! Scientific observation of a physical phenomenon does not require proof of its mechanism. For instance, (arguably less compellingly than Wegener’s observations), the much lauded IPCC WG1 AR5 report (WG1 = The Scientific Basis) makes very many pronouncements whilst conceding that the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. Your attitude suggests naively for example that we cannot accept that our sun is currently very sunspot-inactive

An example quite relevant to the current severe coral bleaching* in the far north of the GBR is that it coincided with the peak of the big 2016 El Nino warming (although 1998 was bigger by some measures). However, although this ENSO phenomenon is well observed and its consequences are well described, its drivers or causes are unknown. No matter, despite the causes being unknown, those keen to report hot thermal bleaching on the GBR wilfully forecast that hot ocean poolings like this, (which are a major spike-departure from underlying warming trends), will increase in severity and frequency! (HOW do they KNOW?).

This is the sort of stuff, (there being a plethora too big for here), which should be examined by an authority totally independent of the collegiate consensus group.

* Not part of the topic here BTW.