Global warming! Corals: the announced hecatomb takes place - IMPORTANT: To stop your posts to be hidden by the flag trollers, just post on https://busy.org/

mybestnews (2)in #global • 6 years ago

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Global warming! Corals: the announced hecatomb takes place

The famous Great Barrier Reef in Australia is going badly. About 30% of its reefs died in the course of 2016 due to global warming. Its future seems compromised as well as that of other coral reefs in the world. The event had been predicted for the 2020 horizon by 2000 by an Australian expert, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

Over the last fifty years, Earth has lost between 40 and 50% of its coral reefs . True "lungs of the oceans", these vast structures are as vital to the planet as virgin forests. Even if they represent only 0.1% of the surface of the oceans (which produce 50% of the oxygen we breathe), coral reefs are home to 25% of all existing marine life. Above all, they allow more than 500 million people to live.

The recent announcement by a team of researchers in an article published by the famous journal Nature is particularly disturbing: it shows a real slaughter in the famous Great Barrier Reef (GBC), off Australia. It formalizes, through a scientific publication, what was already known for almost a year, namely that 30% of the corals of the GBC died in the course of 2016 following a heat wave directly linked to global warming global.

(Unsupported https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gioc3QAJ7s)

That's what healthy coral reefs look like. These are images of Ribbon Reefs , a chain of ten large reefs forming the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. These reefs are home to some of the most popular dive sites: Steve's Bommie, Lighthouse Bommie and Cod Hole . © Undersea Productions

The disturbing bleaching of corals

These deaths are produced by coral bleaching. These are animals living in symbiosis with an alga responsible for their color and a large part of their food. However, this alga leaves them under the effect of heat stress. Some parts of the affected reefs can recover, but this is not obvious and it takes time. With two severe bleaching episodes in 2016, damaged GBC reefs have no chance of recovery. The loss occurred over a nine-month period between March and November 2016.

(Unsupported https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4v79I9czDA)

This is what has become of some reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. The bleaching that led to the death of corals in November 2016 is spectacular at Zenith Reef (north of the Great Barrier Reef). © ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

The Great Barrier Reef is certainly threatened by climate change , but it is not condemned if we respond very quickly to greenhouse gas emissions. Our study shows that coral reefs are already changing dramatically in response to unprecedented heat waves, " said Professor Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies , one of the authors of the Nature article.

Unfortunately, there may be good reasons to be pessimistic. A few years ago, Futura had devoted several articles to the Catlin Seaview Survey . One of the world's leading coral specialists worked closely with the members of the Catlin Seaview Survey as scientific leader: Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. He had predicted a catastrophe by 2020.

What you must remember

Coral reefs are animals that live in symbiosis with algae, unfortunately sensitive to global warming.
In 2016, about 30% of the Australian Great Barrier Reef's coral reefs died and it will only get worse if we do nothing to limit global warming to 2 ° C.
The hecatomb was planned in 2000 by an Australian expert, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. The researcher even fears a disappearance of corals by the end of this century.

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