“If conditions continue to worsen, the Great Barrier Reef is set to suffer from widespread coral bleaching and subsequent mortality”, said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the Queensland’s Global Change Institute.
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Coral reefs worldwide are in danger of succumbing to bleaching.
Richard Vevers, an Executive Director at XL Catlin Seaview Survey told Christian Science Monitor that the destruction rising temperatures could cause was not to be underestimated.
Scientists have warned that the world faces mass global coral bleaching next year driven by the warming effects of the El Nino weather phenomenon – and it could be the worst on record.
Almost a month after scientists expressed their concern about Hawaii’s impending coral bleaching, a bigger problem pertaining to coral bleaching is brewing because it now appears that the phenomenon is spreading worldwide.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared the world’s third-ever global bleaching event. These coral reefs are still alive, but they are under extreme stress.
The alert said, “2015 has now seen coral bleaching occurring in reefs in the northern Pacific, Indian, equatorial Pacific, and western Atlantic Oceans”. The middle Florida Keys aren’t too bad, but in southeast Florida, bleaching has combined with disease to kill corals, Eakin said. A smaller El Nino in 2009-2010 was the second. It said that corals, including in Hawaii, have been harmed by a huge mass of warm water called “The Blob” in the north eastern Pacific has harmed.
U.S. government scientists in August said the El Nino now under way – the first in five years – could be among the strongest in 65 years, while the authorities in Australia have predicted it would be “strong” and “substantial”.
“Last year’s bleaching at Lisianski Atoll was the worst our scientists have seen”, said Randy Kosaki, NOAA’s deputy superintendent for the monument.
NOAA produced forecasts of bleaching that show it as a giant red blob moving across the globe again.
The computer model forecasts “this horrendous dramatic” impact on the Great Barrier Reef, Hodgson said.
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Even though coral reefs are one-tenth of 1 percent of the ocean floor by area, they are home to 25 percent of the world’s fish species, Eakin said. NOAA estimates that nearly 95 percent of USA coral reefs will have been exposed to the kind of ocean conditions which can cause bleaching by the end of 2015. “About 500 million people worldwide rely on coral reefs for both income and food so losing those coral reefs has major knock-on implications”.
