‘Like wildfires underwater’: Worst summer on record for Great Barrier Reef as coral die-off sweeps planet – CNN World
Rising sea temperatures around the planet have caused a bleaching event that is expected to be the most extensive on record…
Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’ – the Guardian
Last month the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority released a report warning that the reef was experiencing “the highest levels of thermal stress on record”. The authority’s chief scientist, Dr Roger Beeden, spoke of extensive and uniform bleaching across the southern reefs, which had dodged the worst of much of the previous four mass bleaching events to blight the Great Barrier Reef since 2016…
Corals are bleaching in every corner of the ocean, threatening its web of life – the Washington Post
First around Fiji, then the Florida Keys, then Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and now in the Indian Ocean. In the past year, anomalous ocean temperatures have left a trail of devastation for the world’s corals, bleaching entire reefs and threatening widespread coral mortality — and now, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and International Coral Reef Initiative say the world is experiencing its fourth global bleaching event, the second in the last decade…
The Widest-Ever Global Coral Crisis Will Hit Within Weeks, Scientists Say – the New York Times
The world’s coral reefs are in the throes of a global bleaching event caused by extraordinary ocean temperatures…It is the fourth such global event on record and is expected to affect more reefs than any other. Bleaching occurs when corals become so stressed that they lose the symbiotic algae they need to survive. Bleached corals can recover, but if the water surrounding them is too hot for too long, they die…
Reef stars’ restored Indonesia’s blast-damaged corals in just 4 years – Grist Magazine
A community-based approach to restoration combined with an ingenious device can bring back reefs traumatized by dynamite fishing…
How to Crochet a Coral Reef – and Why – Scientific American
In 2005, Los Angeles-based twin sisters, Margaret and Christine Wertheim tried a different approach to communications by starting the Crochet Coral Reef project. The idea was born from their love of the Great Barrier Reef, their oceanic neighbor, and their appreciation for handiwork and the community it can create, simply by participation…
Coral, Crochet and Hyperbolic Geometry . . .
The long-running project, sometimes described as the environmental version of the AIDS quilt, thrives on convoluted math and a sea of volunteers….To date, nearly 25,000 crocheters (“reefers”) have created a worldwide archipelago of more than 50 reefs — both a paean to and a plea for these ecosystems, rainforests of the sea, which are threatened by climate change. The project also explores mathematical themes, since many living reef organisms biologically approximate the quirky curvature of hyperbolic geometry…
It’s Not Just Coral. Extreme Heat is Weakening Entire Marine Ecosystems in Florida – Grist Magazine
Anemones, sponges, and jellyfish are bleaching throughout the Everglades amid record temperatures. It’s a troubling sign for Florida Bay and beyond.
We studied more than 1,500 coastal ecosystems – they will drown if we let the world warm above 2℃ – the Conversation
Much of the world’s natural coastline is protected by living habitats, most notably mangroves in warmer waters and tidal marshes closer to the poles. These ecosystems support fisheries and wildlife, absorb the impact of crashing waves and clean up pollutants. But these vital services are threatened by global warming and rising sea levels…