The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone – the Atlantic
As far as humanity is concerned, the transformation of our seas is “effectively permanent.”
Coral bleaching is now so extreme, scientists had to expand their scale for it – the Washington Post
For more than a decade, marine experts have relied on an alert scale from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to signal how much stress ocean heat is putting on corals and what risk there is for bleaching. The highest on the two-level system, Bleaching Alert Level 2, has for years represented coral catastrophe. That has sufficed — until last summer…
One way to save coral reefs? Deep freeze them for the future – NPR
Ocean temperatures have been extremely hot this summer, wreaking havoc on some of the world’s highly vulnerable coral reefs. With marine heat waves only expected to get worse as the climate changes, scientists are increasingly focusing on an emergency plan: collecting coral specimens and safeguarding them onshore….
NOAA and partners race to rescue remaining Florida corals from historic ocean heat wave – NOAA Climate.gov
In mid-July 2023, heat-stressed corals in the southern Florida Keys began bleaching—expelling their food-producing algal partners—amid the hottest water temperatures ever documented in the region during the satellite record (dating back to 1985). As weeks of heat stress have continued to accumulate, bleaching and death have become more widespread, raising fears of a mass mortality event on the region’s already fragile reefs…