Coral Reef
The Rainforest of The Sea
What is a coral?
A coral is an animal with lots of polyps. Each polyp is a circular mouth surrounded by tentacles.
Inside their tissues are plants, or micro algae, about a million per centimeter square of coral.
These micro algae photosynthesize and provide food for the coral.
The micro algae are also what give the corals their colors.
Coral can tolerate only a relatively narrow temperature range between 73-84 °F.
When the water gets too warm, the algae inside the coral release compounds that are harmful to the coral.
This causes corals to expel their algae, and lose their color.
This phenomenon is called coral bleaching.
An increase of just 1 °C for 4 weeks can cause coral bleaching.
When this rising temperature sustains, the algae won't come back...
...and the coral dies.
This is the result of 2016 coral mass bleaching, the highest sea surface temperature ever recorded.
Just in 2016, 29% of the Great Barrier Reef died.
This is equivalent to losing most of the trees in Maine.
When you think that forest fire is already a catastrophic side effect of the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere...
...remember that 93% of the heat trapped by CO2 is absorbed by the ocean.
In 2030s, most coral reefs are projected to experience coral bleaching at least twice per decade.
By 2040, most coral reefs will experience coral bleaching every year. This frequency would prevent coral recovery between episodes.
Without drastic change, coral reefs could disappear by 2100.
But there is still hope for coral reef, if we work on it...
Globally, we need to maintain the world’s temperature by reducing carbon emissions.
At the same time, we have to make an effort to protect our coral reefs:
Restore critical coral reef habitat and coastal ecosystems,
Promote recovery of degraded coral reefs,
Strengthen coral’s tolerance to climate change,
Protect by cooling and shading of reefs most at risk.
Just imagine what we can achieve.
Sources
Burke, Lauretta and Katie Wood. "Decoding Coral Reefs: Exploring Their Status, Risks and Ensuring Their Future". World Resource Institute. Last updated December 13th, 2021. https://www.wri.org/insights/decoding-coral-reefs
Chasing Coral. "The Issue". Accessed October 2nd, 2022. https://www.chasingcoral.com/the-issue/
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "Long Term Temperature Monitoring". Accessed October 2nd, 2022. https://myfwc.com/research/habitat/coral/cremp/temp-monitoring/
Great Barrier Reef Foundation. “Reef Recovery 2030”. Accessed October 2nd, 2022. https://www.barrierreef.org/what-we-do/reef-recovery-2030
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Extended reconstructed sea surface temperature (ERSST.v5). April 2021. Distributed by United States Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-surface-temperature#ref7
NOAA Fisheries. "Shallow Coral Reef Habitat". Last updated February 2nd, 2022. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/habitat-conservation/shallow-coral-reef-habitat#coral-reefs:-rainforests-of-the-sea
Orlowski, Jeff. Chasing Coral. Netflix, 2017. 1hr., 52 min. https://www.netflix.com/title/80168188?source=35
Reef Resilience Network. "Value of Reefs". Accessed October 2nd, 2022. https://reefresilience.org/value-of-reefs/
WorldFish. Coral Bleaching Data (V.1.4). September 28, 2022. Distributed by Harvard Dataverse. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/KUVQKY
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