CORAL REEFS SUFFER FOURTH GLOBAL BLEACHING EVENT: U.S. AGENCY

This article was written by Reuters and was published in the Globe & Mail on April 16, 2024.

Along coastlines from Australia to Kenya to Mexico, many of the world’s colourful coral reefs have turned a ghostly white in what scientists said on Monday amounted to the fourth global bleaching event in the past three decades. At least 54 countries and territories have experienced mass bleaching among their reefs since February, 2023, as climate change warms the ocean’s surface waters, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch, the world’s top coral reef monitoring body.

Bleaching is triggered by water temperature anomalies that cause corals to expel the colourful algae living in their tissues. Without the algae’s help in delivering nutrients to the corals, the corals cannot survive.

“More than 54 per cent of the reef areas in the global ocean are experiencing bleaching-level heat stress,” Coral Reef Watch co-ordinator Derek Manzello said.

Announcement of the latest global bleaching event was made jointly by NOAA and the International Coral Reef Initiative, a global intergovernmental conservation partnership. For an event to be deemed global, significant bleaching must occur in all three ocean basins – the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian – within a 365-day period. Like this year’s bleaching event, the last three – in 1998, 2010 and 2014-2017 – also coincided with an El Nino climate pattern, which typically ushers in warmer sea temperatures. Sea surface temperatures over the past year have smashed records that have been kept since 1979, as the effects of El Nino are compounded by climate change.

Scientists have expressed concern that many of the world’s reefs will not recover from the intense, prolonged heat stress.

Author: Ray Nakano

Ray is a retired, third generation Japanese Canadian born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. He resides in Toronto where he worked for the Ontario Government for 28 years. Ray was ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2011 and practises in the Plum Village tradition, supporting sanghas in their mindfulness practice. Ray is very concerned about our climate crisis. He has been actively involved with the ClimateFast group (https://climatefast.ca) for the past 5 years. He works to bring awareness of our climate crisis to others and motivate them to take action. He has created the myclimatechange.home.blog website, for tracking climate-related news articles, reports, and organizations. He has created mobilizecanada.ca to focus on what you can do to address the climate crisis. He is always looking for opportunities to reach out to communities, politicians, and governments to communicate about our climate crisis and what we need to do. He says: “Our world is in dire straits. We have to bend the curve on our heat-trapping pollutants in the next few years if we hope to avoid the most serious impacts of human-caused global warming. Doing nothing is not an option. We must do everything we can to create a livable future for our children, our grandchildren, and all future generations.”