IshaanBilala
Banned
The sweeping reefs growing off 200 steamy miles of remote Australian coastline—from Cairns to Cape Melville, home to sugar farms and dive resorts—contained some of the least damaged corals growing in one of the world’s best marine parks. Until now.
In stunning new findings that have laid bare the limitations of marine parks as defenses against rapid environmental change, more than half of the corals surveyed in large chunks of this pristine stretch of the Great Barrier Reef are expected to soon be dead.
“Reefs that are in better shape should fare better under climate change,” said John Pandolfi, a University of Queensland professor who contributed to high-profile coral surveys, the results of which were released this week. “But, in this case, we found huge instances of coral mortality.”
The coral deaths followed intense coral bleaching, which was caused by global warming and influenced by the whims of the weather. Hot waters have caused corals worldwide to spit out the algae that provided their color and food. Those that can’t cool down and find new algae quickly enough die.
The colorless coral corpses of north Queensland will soon be blanketed with mats of algae, and the hard skeletons will begin to crumble. It may take decades for the submerged wonders of what had recently been unspoiled reefs to resprout and recover from the wipeout, if they ever do.
Temperatures continue to rise worldwide. The amount of heat-trapping pollution released every year from fuel burning and deforestation has plateaued in recent years, while the amount of pollution in the atmosphere continues to pile up. Bleaching is caused primarily by warm waters, and the current worldwide bleaching is the third and worst on record, all since the late 1990s.
In stunning new findings that have laid bare the limitations of marine parks as defenses against rapid environmental change, more than half of the corals surveyed in large chunks of this pristine stretch of the Great Barrier Reef are expected to soon be dead.
“Reefs that are in better shape should fare better under climate change,” said John Pandolfi, a University of Queensland professor who contributed to high-profile coral surveys, the results of which were released this week. “But, in this case, we found huge instances of coral mortality.”
The coral deaths followed intense coral bleaching, which was caused by global warming and influenced by the whims of the weather. Hot waters have caused corals worldwide to spit out the algae that provided their color and food. Those that can’t cool down and find new algae quickly enough die.
The colorless coral corpses of north Queensland will soon be blanketed with mats of algae, and the hard skeletons will begin to crumble. It may take decades for the submerged wonders of what had recently been unspoiled reefs to resprout and recover from the wipeout, if they ever do.
Temperatures continue to rise worldwide. The amount of heat-trapping pollution released every year from fuel burning and deforestation has plateaued in recent years, while the amount of pollution in the atmosphere continues to pile up. Bleaching is caused primarily by warm waters, and the current worldwide bleaching is the third and worst on record, all since the late 1990s.