Water Wildfires underwater? Worst summer on record for Great Barrier Reef as coral die
Great Barrier Reef Suffers Worst Summer as Global Coral Bleaching Event Unfolds
On the day May 4 2024. morning sun rises over the Great Barrier Reef, its light shines the turquoise waters of a shallow lagoon, bringing more than a dozen turtles to life. These waters that surround Lady Elliot Island, off the eastern coast of Australia, provide some of the most spectacular snorkeling in the world but they are also on the front line of the climate crisis, as one of the first places to suffer a mass coral bleaching event that has now spread across the world. The Great Barrier Reef just experienced its worst summer on record, and the US based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last month that the world is undergoing a rare global mass coral bleaching event the fourth since the late 1990s impacting at least 53 countries.
Climate Change Fuels Underwater Wildfires Threatening Marine Life and Humans
The corals are casualties of surging global temperatures which have smashed historical records in the past year caused mainly by fossil fuels driving up carbon emissions and accelerated by the El Niño weather pattern, which heats ocean temperatures in this part of the world. We witnessed bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in mid February, on five different reefs spanning the northern and southern parts of the 2,300 kilometer (1,400-mile) ecosystem. “What is happening now in our oceans is like wildfires underwater,” said Kate Quigley, principal research scientist at Australia’s Minderoo Foundation. Bleaching occurs when marine heatwaves put corals under stress, causing them to expel algae from their tissue, draining their color. Corals can recover from bleaching if the temperatures return to normal, but they will perish if the water stays warmer than usual. The destruction of marine ecosystems would deliver an effective death sentence for around a quarter of all species that depend on reefs for survival and threaten an estimated billion people who rely on reef fish for their food and livelihoods. Reefs also provide vital protection for coastlines, reducing the impact of floods, cyclones and sea level rise.
Scientists Race to Save Coral Reefs Through Research and Restoration
Beyond the Great Barrier Reef, the massive marine heatwave sweeping the globe has already impacted some of the world’s most famous coral reefs including those in the Red Sea, Indonesia and the Seychelles. Last year, the soaring ocean temperatures also caused widespread destruction of corals in the Caribbean and Florida and US experts are predicting further damage there this coming summer. In February, the NOAA added three new levels to its coral bleaching alert maps, to enable scientists to assess the new scale of underwater warming. Researchers are also trying to buy some time for coral reefs until the world can bring emissions under control. For the past six years, Peter Harrison and his team at Southern Cross University in New South Wales have been developing a “coral IVF” program to increase coral reproduction on the reef. Research projects are also taking place at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) looking at breeding heat resistant corals which can survive higher temperatures, and developing AI tools to try to make some of the processes scalable for the vast size of the reef.
Controversy Over Fossil Fuels and the Emotional Toll on Scientists
The Australian government has faced criticism for pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into myriad reef research projects, while simultaneously doubling down on the use and production of the fossil fuels which drive climate change even approving the opening of four new coal mines in 2023. “We have this dreadful dissonance that Australia is mining, selling to be burned at great scale, and at great speed the very thing, the very pollution that is driving the destruction of this beautiful place,” David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia, told CNN. Scientists predict that, at the current pace of warming, global average temperatures could be 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050. At that level of heat, 99% of coral reefs will simply die. For the marine biologists witnessing this die off, there’s a real sense of mourning. Everyone connected to the reef is “wrestling” with feelings of grief and helplessness, said David Wachenfeld, research program director at AIMS. Harrison, the researcher at Southern Cross University, described it as “ecological grief.”