Deaths Under The Sea
Coral reefs are one of the ocean’s natural beauties, but they're more than their bright, iridescent colors. They are peaceful and incredibly reliable. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, approximately half a billion of people rely on the reefs “for food, income, and protection.” Coral reefs are a gift to society, and protect us from any aggressive currents. However, humanity hasn’t reciprocated the same kind of treatment for them. In recent years, coral reefs have faced a significant threat: coral bleaching.
What's Going On?
Coral bleaching occurs from stress due to condition changes in the ocean such as warmer water temperatures, pollution, and overfishing. When a coral gets stressed, it starts to lose its algae and turn completely white. A coral can recover from bleaching if the conditions return back to normal, however, the process can take decades. Throughout recovery, conditions of the ocean must also be regulated, and they can’t ever change.
If the rate of our current state persists, it will cause severe bleaching, and we could face a devastating fate for our Great Barrier Reef.
In all bleaching reports taken since the 1960s, about 95% of those happened in the last two decades (1990-2010) of the dataset. This incredibly rapid increase in bleaching reports calls for an emergency look into these cases and an insight on how to stop before this becomes irreversible damage.
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Not only is the astonishing rise in bleaching reports frightening, the severity of these reports call for their own separate point. Out of all of the bleaching reports taken in the 50 years, over half were affected by bleaching, and approximately one third of those were labeled as 'High Severity'.
But the bleaching incidents are not the only thing to worry about, as the sea temperatures are also affected by this. Over the last few years leading up to 2017, there has been a steady increase in sea surface temperatures, with each year having a sizable rise. In just 6 years, the maximum sea surface temperatures increased by 3 entire degrees (C).
There has been severe damage for the Great Barrier Reef from human activity. However, not all hope is lost. We still have time. There’s still time to make it right and improve our current state. If we lead the future towards climate regulation and renewable energy, then we can save marine life from unnecessary harms.
Made by Megan Sia, Caroline Kowal, Amrut Pennaka
SLX IMPACT Project
Works Cited:
Australian Marine Conservation Society. (2018). What is Coral Bleaching and What Causes It -
Fight For Our Reef. Australian Marine Conservation Society. https://www.marineconservation.org.au/coral-bleaching/
CSIRO. (2021, January 26). Great Barrier Reef Carbon Dioxide Measurements. Www.csiro.au. https://www.csiro.au/en/education/resources/educational-datasets/gbr-carbon-study
Hancock, L. (2014). Everything You Need to Know about Coral Bleaching—and How We Can Stop It. World Wildlife Fund. https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/everything-you-need-to-know-about-coral-bleaching-and-how-we-can-stop-it
NOAA. (2019, February). Coral reef ecosystems | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Www.noaa.gov. https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/marine-life/coral-reef-ecosystems#:~:text=Coral%20reefs%20protect%20coastlines%20from
NOAA. (2020, November 5). What is coral bleaching? Noaa.gov.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html
ReefBase, 2016, "Coral Bleaching Data", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/KUVQKY, Harvard Dataverse, V1
Super User. (2020, January 8). Monthly CO2. CO2.Earth. https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2