• 6 months ago
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It's official. Scientists from NOAA and the International Coral Reef Initiative have declared that the world is experiencing its fourth global coral bleaching event. Derek Manzello, NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Coordinator, explains the ramifications.

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Transcript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Significant severe coral bleaching has been reported
00:04 in at least 54 countries and territories
00:08 around the globe since February, 2023.
00:12 So it's spatially extensive occurring, again,
00:16 in all ocean basins across multiple, multiple countries.
00:20 NOAA is declaring that the world is indeed, in fact,
00:24 experiencing its fourth global coral bleaching event.
00:27 It is unfortunately official.
00:30 Scientists from the National Oceanic
00:32 and Atmospheric Administration
00:33 and the International Coral Reef Initiative
00:36 have formally announced wide swaths of tropical reefs
00:39 have started to expel the colorful algae
00:41 living in their tissue.
00:43 The joint statement comes just weeks
00:45 after NOAA issued a dire warning
00:47 about the risk of a mass coral bleaching event
00:49 following months of record-breaking ocean heat
00:52 and documenting extensive bleaching-level heat stress
00:56 on reefs across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
01:00 Joining us now is the man you just heard from,
01:02 the coordinator of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch, Derek Manzello.
01:06 Derek, thank you so much for coming on.
01:08 So for those who might not be familiar
01:10 with the term coral bleaching,
01:12 what exactly is it and what causes it?
01:14 - So corals are an animal,
01:18 very similar to a jellyfish or something like that.
01:21 They're very simple animals.
01:23 They're only about four cell layers thick,
01:26 but they live in a symbiotic relationship
01:28 with a type of algae,
01:30 and this algae provides upwards of 95%
01:34 of the nutritional requirements of the coral animal.
01:37 However, the symbiotic relationship
01:39 is highly sensitive to elevated temperatures.
01:42 And this is because photosynthesis essentially goes haywire
01:46 in the algae at high temperatures and high light,
01:48 causing the coral animal to expel these symbionts.
01:52 So when they expel their symbionts,
01:54 they turn stark bone white,
01:57 and they just have the coral tissue and no algae.
01:59 And essentially what this means is that
02:01 the coral is in a state of starvation.
02:04 So if water temperatures don't decline
02:07 and things don't cool off quick enough,
02:09 the coral may eventually die from this bleach condition.
02:12 - So this is now the fourth worldwide mass bleaching event.
02:15 When was the last one and why is this so significant?
02:18 - So there have been three previous
02:21 global coral bleaching events on record.
02:23 The first was 1998, the second was 2010,
02:25 and the third was from 2014 to 2017.
02:29 So this is the second global scale
02:31 mass coral bleaching event we've experienced
02:33 in the last 10 years.
02:35 And the coral reefs are significant for multiple reasons.
02:38 So one of the big things they do
02:40 is they provide coastal protection from storms.
02:42 Now, healthy coral reefs can block more than 90%
02:45 of the wave energy during things like hurricanes,
02:48 typhoons, and cyclones.
02:51 Coral reefs are also the rainforests of the sea.
02:54 Now, what that means is about 25%
02:56 of every living thing in the ocean
02:58 depends on coral reefs at some point in its lifetime.
03:02 So what that means is one in four of every organism
03:04 that's alive in the ocean is dependent
03:07 on functional, healthy coral reefs.
03:10 - So how does weather play a role in this?
03:12 I assume that El Niño and La Niña both play a part,
03:16 but what exactly is it?
03:19 - So El Niño definitely plays a part.
03:22 Now, the first mass coral bleaching event
03:25 that ever occurred on record
03:27 due to elevated ocean temperatures
03:28 happened actually 40 years ago now.
03:31 So this occurred throughout the Eastern Tropical Pacific
03:34 over 1982, 1983.
03:36 Now, that was at that time the strongest El Niño on record.
03:40 Now, of course, we've broken that record now two times since.
03:44 Now, the reason this is so severe
03:47 and that these mass coral bleaching events
03:50 are happening more frequently
03:51 is because the ocean is warming significantly and rapidly,
03:55 and it's outpacing the ability of corals
03:58 to keep track with these rising ocean temperatures.
04:01 - Is there any hope?
04:02 Can coral reefs rebound?
04:04 - Absolutely.
04:06 So there's absolutely hope.
04:07 One of the things I wanna make clear
04:09 is that all is not lost, right?
04:11 This should be viewed as a global warning.
04:14 The fact that we're seeing this synchronous bleaching
04:17 happening in all three ocean basins,
04:18 I mean, it's so severe,
04:19 you can see coral bleaching from satellites, right?
04:23 So if temperatures cool off quickly enough,
04:26 corals can recover and they can rebound.
04:29 Now, the issue is coral bleaching events
04:31 are becoming more severe
04:33 and they're becoming more frequent.
04:34 So even in the best case circumstance,
04:37 it can take a reef maybe seven to 15 years
04:40 to start recovering coral from upstream sources,
04:44 coral larvae come in from other reefs.
04:46 Now, the issue is we're seeing bleaching events
04:49 happen with much greater frequency than seven to 15 years.
04:52 So what this means is that reefs are now entering
04:54 a state of chronic stress.
04:56 And this is why it's so important that we continue
05:01 to engage in this assistant evolution process
05:04 using cutting edge science and restoration
05:07 to try to breed corals that have higher heat tolerance
05:10 that we can then utilize to restore places
05:13 that have been impacted like the Florida Keys.
05:16 Derek Manziello, thank you so much for coming on
05:18 and for sharing your knowledge with us.
05:20 My pleasure, thank you for having me.
05:23 (upbeat music)

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