Scientists Warn of Coral Bleaching in Caribbean

[liberato]

All Things Considered, March 14, 2006

Scientists say that the biggest episode of coral-reef bleaching is taking place in the Caribbean. As much as 70 percent of reefs are suffering in some areas, and the issue is affecting the whole basin from the Florida Keys to Panama.
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[pakman]

All Things Considered, March 14, 2006

Scientists say that the biggest episode of coral-reef bleaching is taking place in the Caribbean. As much as 70 percent of reefs are suffering in some areas, and the issue is affecting the whole basin from the Florida Keys to Panama.
​

and on the opposite side of the earth... same thing's happening...

Ghostly coral bleachings haunt the world's reefs

SYDNEY (Reuters) - When marine scientist Ray Berkelmans went diving at Australia's Great Barrier Reef earlier this year, what he discovered shocked him -- a graveyard of coral stretching as far as he could see.

"It's a white desert out there," Berkelmans told Reuters in early March after returning from a dive to survey bleaching -- signs of a mass death of corals caused by a sudden rise in ocean temperatures -- around the Keppel Islands.

full article here...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060314...gDG0DrQOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

what causes this?

 

[LSDeep]

yep, was happen in the whole caribbean last year, as said above on gbr earlier this year and is predicted to get worse this year with a new el ninjo like situation this year. its like x-mas underwater all white! amazingly enough it recovered in most of the caribbean last year in no time. lets hope it will be the same again and not seriously destroy the badly damged reefs more.

 

[fbosch]

what causes this is oil coal and gas companies and policies that simply reward them for cracking co2 into the atmosphere.
but we have to also look at deforestation too.

Im sorry to see it happening so quickly

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Coral, like other living things, won't adapt? How much of this is the fault of humankind, and how much is attributed to the Earth's natural warming and cooling trends? Have scientists been able to separate this out? Will coral, in response to higher temperatures, begin to grow at cooler depths?

 

[usnadiver03]

what causes this is oil coal and gas companies and policies that simply reward them for cracking co2 into the atmosphere.
but we have to also look at deforestation too.

Im sorry to see it happening so quickly

I think it is 100% amazing that anyone, politicians, scientists, etc can believe that we as man have any influence on how something as complex as the planet earth functions. No matter how much CO2 we release, no matter how much coal or oil we burn, we are insignificant to the catastrophic effects of nature (Katrina is case in point). Try to not be an alarmist and look at the facts. The earth is cyclical in everything, tides, weather, everything. We cannot stop it, we cannot retard it we cannot even speed it up.

Just my 2C.

 

[H2Andy]

what causes this?

a raise in the average water temperature

coral can only handle water up to about 84 degrees Farenheit

now, what causes the heating is open for debate. some say it's a natural
cycle, some say i't due to industrial pollution.

Coral, like other living things, won't adapt?

coral is very frail. it requires specific light conditions and water
temperatures. also, it grows extremely slowly. it takes quite a while
for even slight damage to be repaired.

it can likely be wiped out by 10 years of above-average temperatures.

keep in mind, 25% of all marine species either breed, grow up, or live
in coral reefs.

it's gonna be an ecological nightmare

amazingly enough it recovered in most of the caribbean last year in no time

what happens is that the algae that live in the coral die off. the
coral then looks "white." hopefully, the algae bounce back, and
all is well.

however, if repeated bleachings kill off the algae, the coral itself
will die. once the coral dies, it's irreversible.

 

[H2Andy]

just to follow up, this has been happening since 1998.

the great barrier reef was hit then, and it mostly recovered. then it got
hit again in 2000. basically, it's been hit on and off since then. it's been
hit again this year.

last year and this year, the Caribbean also got hit.

looks like the rate at which is happening is increasing.

coral is naturally white. the colors you see are the algae that live with it.
corals can't live without this algae.

the hot water kills the algae. the coral then looks "white."

if the algae don't come back, the coral will die.

 

[agilis]

The first time I read anything about coral bleaching, or heard the term used, was in an article by Robert Straughan, more than 30 years ago. Straughan died a long time ago, but back in the 1950s and 60s he was a pioneer in the marine aquarium field, and a collector of aquarium specimens. His shop was on the Rickenbacker Causeway in Miami. He published a magazine for marine aquarists, popularized reef aquaria, and invented the term "live rock". He was an ardent conservationist, and wrote extensively about the destruction of the Florida reefs by pollution, dredging, housing developments, coastal construction, and other large scale human activity, all of which are infinitly more destructive than an army specimen collectors. Straughan and others predicted the end of the coral reefs before too many more decades had passed.

Be thankful you were alive to see live reefs, even if only at the tail end of their existence. A few generations from now, they will be a memory, preserved on tape, but basically extinct. We are killing them off through the synergetic combination of many, many human activities. Global warming is only one symptom. Biologists point out that we are now in the opening stages of a great age of extinction, like those that happened millions of years ago.

To summarize the the basic cause, it's 6 billion humans, and a population expanding so rapidly that almost everything else is is being destroyed to feed and house this human tsunami. Because nothing can really be done to stop this, public discussion focuses on band-aid feel-good activity. The hard truth is that it's too late.