Brazil braces for worst coral bleaching ever
Japaratinga, Brazil Reuters Brazil is bracing for what may be its worst-ever coral bleaching event as extremely warm waters damage reefs in the country’s largest marine reserve – threatening the region’s tourism and fishing revenues. With the world’s corals now suffering a fourth mass bleaching event in three decades, some had hoped Brazil’s reefs would […]
Ocean temperature hit record high in February 2024, EU scientists say
London, UK Reuters Ocean temperatures hit a record high in February, with the average global sea surface temperature at 21.06 degrees Celsius, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday. February’s average sea surface temperature surpassed the previous record of 20.98 degrees Celsius set in August, 2023, in a dataset that goes back […]
Red Sea epidemic kills off sea urchins, imperilling coral
Tel Aviv, IsraelReuters A deadly epidemic that is spreading through the Red Sea has killed off an entire species of sea urchin in the Gulf of Aqaba, imperilling the region’s uniquely resilient coral reefs, an Israeli research team has found. The whole population of black sea urchins, a species known for helping keep coral reefs […]
Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef show highest coral cover in 36 years
Melbourne/Sydney, AustraliaReuters Two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef showed the largest amount of coral cover in 36 years, but the reef remains vulnerable to increasingly frequent mass bleaching, an official long-term monitoring program reported on Thursday. The recovery in the central and northern stretches of the UNESCO world heritage-listed reef contrasted with the southern region, […]
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef status lowered to critical and deteriorating
Melbourne, AustraliaReuters The health of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s most extensive and spectacular coral reef ecosystem, is in a critical state and deteriorating as climate change warms up the waters in which it lies, an international conservation group said. The World Heritage-listed site off Australia’s north-eastern coast has lost more than half its […]
Disaster under the waves: the race to save the coral of the Caribbean
Key West, Florida, USReuters Emily Hower, a research assistant at Nova Southeastern University doing field work on coral off Key West in Florida, bobs up out of the water and removes her diving mask. The news is not good. Most of the pillar coral that her team have been monitoring for years are dead. A […]
OCEAN CONSERVATION: COLOMBIA’S ISLAND FISHERMEN DIVE INTO BATTLE TO PROTECT CORAL REEFS
ANASTASIA MOLONEY, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports that as climate change and growing tourism hurt coral, Colombian efforts to “garden” new coral – and save incomes – are paying off…