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What is Coral Bleaching?
What is Coral Bleaching?
Before understanding what coral bleaching is, it is important to know a little bit more about coral. Corals have a collaborative relationship with these microscopic algae called zooxanthellae. These algae feed the coral, remove waste from their system, and give them their bright colors while the corals provide the algae with nutrients that help them survive. This mutually beneficial relationship makes it so that the corals and algae can’t live without each other. Coral Bleaching occurs when the algae is forced to leave the coral due to things like increases in ocean temperatures, toxic chemicals, and too much sunlight, making the coral lose its color and starve to death.
Why is this a problem?
Why is this a problem?
A little bit of bleaching in reefs is perfectly normal, especially in summers where the temperatures are higher. However, as climate change worsens, so does coral bleaching. For instance, ocean temperatures are rapidly rising due to climate change, causing marine heatwaves that bring about bleaching events throughout the world. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, between 2014 and 2017 around 75% of the world’s tropical coral reefs experienced heat-stress severe enough to trigger bleaching. For 30% of the world’s reefs, that heat-stress was enough to kill coral.
Recent Bleaching Events:
Recent Bleaching Events:
2005: The U.S.A lost half of its reefs in the caribbean in one year (maybe add pic)
2014: Florida lost ⅓ of their Elkhorn Corals to a bleaching event
2015-16: The Pacific Remote Islands lost a significant number of their reefs to an ocean heat wave caused by El Nino
2016: 22% of corals in the Great Barrier Reef died because of the same heatwave
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