Huge stretches of coral reef around the world are turning a ghostly white this year amid record warm ocean temperatures. Coral reefs around the world are experiencing global bleaching for the fourth time, top reef scientists declared Monday, a result of warming ocean waters amid human-caused climate change. On Monday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the world's fourth mass global bleaching event is underway - with serious consequences for marine life and for the people and economies that rely on reefs. Coral reef bleaching across at least 53 countries, territories or local economies has been confirmed from February 2023 to now, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and International Coral Reef Initiative said. It ...
Read MoreTag: coral reefs
Finding could help reef managers to develop new defenses against ocean warming Ocean warming is driving an increase in the frequency and severity of marine heatwaves, causing untold damage to coral reefs. Tropical corals, which live in symbiosis with tiny single celled algae, are sensitive to high temperatures, and exhibit a stress response called bleaching when the ocean gets too hot. In the last 4 decades, marine heatwaves have caused widespread bleaching, and killed millions of corals. Because of this, a global search is underway for reefs that can withstand the heat stress, survive future warming, and act as sources of heat-tolerant coral larvae to replenish affected areas both naturally and through restoration. Now, scientists studying reefs in Palau, an archipelago in th...
Read MoreMarine scientists’ letter in the journal Science urges preservation of one of the last coral refuges from climate change An international group of marine scientists led by Karine Kleinhaus, of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), has published a letter in Science that is a call to action for policy makers, government agencies and ocean conservation groups to take major steps to preserve Egypt’s 1800 km of coral reefs– a massive section of the Red Sea’s reef system. Egypt’s reefs generate billions of dollars annually from tourism and tourism-related commerce. The reefs of the northern Red Sea are especially valuable as they constitute one of the world’s few marine refuges from climate change. Almost the entire western coastline of this ref...
Read MoreEgypt hosts next month's COP27 climate summit at a Red Sea resort, where climate change and human activity are threatening one of the world's most prized coral reefs. A key attraction for tourists and habitat for fish nurseries, Egypt's corals fringe coastal towns including Hurghada, Marsa Alam, and Sharm el-Sheikh - where the U.N. conference takes place Nov. 6-18. These Red Sea reefs, which make up about 5% of the global reef cover, contain the most diversity of species outside of Southeast Asia. But many of the world's reefs now face an "existential crisis", with 14% lost between 2009 and 2018 as climate change warms the ocean's surface and increases acidification while human development drives tourism, overfishing and coastal construction that can foul waters, according to...
Read MoreResearchers assess the dire consequences of climate change under a business-as-usual scenario There’s more bad news for planet earth if climate change continues unabated. New research published on October 11th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, United States reveals that, under a worst-case scenario, half of coral reef ecosystems worldwide will permanently face unsuitable conditions in just a dozen years. FILE PHOTO: Reef fish swim above recovering coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia October 25, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson The ability of ecosystems to adapt to changes within their environment largely depends upon the type and impact of their specific environmental stressors. Coral r...
Read MoreOxybenzone — a chemical linked to coral bleaching — transforms from a UV-blocking agent into one that damages cells when exposed to light. A common but controversial sunscreen ingredient that is thought to harm corals might do so because of a chemical reaction that causes it to damage cells in the presence of ultraviolet light. Researchers have discovered that sea anemones, which are similar to corals, make the molecule oxybenzone water-soluble by tacking a sugar onto it. This inadvertently turns oxybenzone into a molecule that — instead of blocking UV light — is activated by sunlight to produce free radicals that can bleach and kill corals. “This metabolic pathway that is meant to detoxify is actually making a toxin,” says Djordje Vuckovic, an environmental engineer at Stanford Uni...
Read MoreScientists have successfully bred a threatened species of coral as part of a project that hopes to restore damaged reefs off the coast of Florida that are under threat by a relatively new disease, a coral rescue organization has said. Reefs in Florida and the Caribbean are facing growing threat of destruction by the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease that strips coral of its color and ultimately its life altogether. Baby rough cactus coral (Mycetophyllia ferox) is seen in a tank at the Florida Coral Rescue Center in this undated handout photo released by Seaworld. Seaworld/Handout via REUTERS The Florida Coral Rescue Center has in recent weeks bred hundreds of new coral of a species called rough cactus coral at a 2,000-square-foot (185.80-square-meter) facility that houses a total o...
Read MoreCoral reefs in every region of the world are threatened by climate change, no matter how remote or well protected. A new study predicts that climate change will result in near-total to total loss of existing locations where coral reefs are sheltered from rising ocean temperatures. Adele Dixon of the University of Leeds, U.K., and colleagues present these findings, which are at higher resolution than any previous analysis, in the open-access journal PLOS Climate on February 1, 2022. As climate change progresses, rising ocean temperatures threaten coral reefs around the world. However, in some locations, local ocean dynamics such as upwelling and strong currents were thought to buffer the effects of warming seas, providing protection to reefs. Nonetheless, it was not known if thes...
Read MoreAustralia’s Great Barrier Reef will survive if warming kept to 1.5 degrees
A study released on Friday by an Australian university looking at multiple catastrophes hitting the Great Barrier Reef has found for the first time that only 2% of its area has escaped bleaching since 1998, then the world's hottest year on record. If global warming is kept to 1.5 degrees, the maximum rise in average global temperature that was the focus of the COP26 United Nations climate conference, the mix of corals on the Barrier Reef will change but it could still thrive, said the study's lead author Professor Terry Hughes, of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. "If we can hold global warming to 1.5 degrees global average warming then I think we'll still have a vibrant Great Barrier Reef," he said. Bleaching is a stress response ...
Read MoreStudy shows 14% of the world's coral on reefs was already lost between 2009 and 2018 The world's coral reefs are under attack by climate change and more will disappear if oceans keep warming, according to a report released Tuesday. The study by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), a U.N.-supported global data network, showed that 14% of the world's coral on reefs was already lost between 2009 and 2018, equal to about 11,700 square kilometers, an area 2.5 times the size of Grand Canyon National Park. FINAL PHOTO: The sunlight illuminates a coral reef in the Red Sea near the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, December 15, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Corals face an "existential crisis," scientists said, as sea surface temperatures rise. The report spanned data for 40 year...
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