Scientists find coral graveyard around isle in Pacific marine reserve
This photo provided by NOAA, taken in May shows bleaching and some dead coral around Jarvis Island, which is part of the U.S. Pacific Remote Marine National Monument. Scientists found 95 percent of the coral is dead in what had been one of the worlds most lush and isolated tropical marine reserve. (NOAA/Bernardo Vargas-Angel via AP)
WASHINGTON » El Nino’s super warm water has turned what had been one of the world’s most lush and isolated tropical marine reserve into a coral graveyard, federal scientists said today.
Researchers finishing an emergency undersea expedition found 95 percent of the coral dead around Jarvis Island in the Pacific Remote Island Marine National Monument . In November, much of the coral had bleached white but was alive.
“There’s hardly anything left on the bottom in terms of the coral. It basically looks like a graveyard,” said the expedition chief scientist Bernardo Vargas-Angel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The skeletons are still there but they are covered with algae.”
The algae was red, the color of blood or wine, and below it was a sea of dead coral, he said, returning from a 10-day diving expedition to the region along the equator, 1,400 miles southwest of Hawaii.
Scientists say the area around Jarvis Island is a special place that normally looks like something out of a technical color movie, vibrant with coral, plankton, fish and sharks. A unique ocean current normally brings cold water up from the deep, making it teem with life, said Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Anne Cohen, who is involved in the research but wasn’t on this trip.
“It’s like the Super Bowl of coral reefs, this place,” Cohen said. “The coral cover is astronomical. The amount of life that it supports is just sky high: fish, turtle, dolphins, sharks. You name it, you find it there in large numbers.”
Don't miss out on what's happening!
Stay in touch with top news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It's FREE!
The coral can normally survive short bouts of warm water but the water just got too warm for too long, scientists said. The water was about 7 degrees warmer than normal (4 degrees Celsius), Cohen said.
Scientists measure how warm the water is for coral in something called degree weeks. The record had been 18 degree Celsius weeks in 2014. This maxed out at 31.3, said NOAA coral reef coordinator Mark Eakin. It has been over 20 degree Celsius weeks for almost eight months, worse than anywhere else, Eakin said.
That warmer water is mostly from El Nino — the natural warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide — assisted by man-made warming, Eakin said.
A study earlier this year found almost as much loss in a nearby island called Kiribati, but Eakin said this was worse.
“Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does,” Eakin said.
8 responses to “Scientists find coral graveyard around isle in Pacific marine reserve”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
No worries, just normal survival of the fittest, and scientist looking for more grant money so they can go snorkel…
Yup Donald Trump said no worries too. No such thing as global warming just the circle of life, hehe. What a genius like some of you folks out there.
Part of the natural cycle. Mother nature has a way to adapt. Corals that can survive in warmer water will take the place of those that cannot.
Look up how long it takes a coral reef to form. Natural cycles are one thing, but now the earth has to deal with man-made global warming as well. And the problem with that is the earth is changing faster than nature can adapt, including coral.
The climate change deniers who say that everything is a “natural cycle” are not harmless idiots; they are dangerous idiots, like Trump, who fail to understand the severe environmental crisis that threatens the ability of the earth to sustain life.
Thanks Mother Nature. It was nice while it lasted. Sorry for the mess. Just send us the bill.
Australia recently demanded that the United Nations remove from a climate change report any reference to the damage it’s causing to Australia’s great barrier reef. Because sticking our heads in the sand so tourism is not affected (in the SHORT run), is more important than acknowledging there is a problem and addressing it for the long run. I’ve said many times that I think Hawaii is doomed, but I don’t think the rest of the planet is that much better off. I feel sorry for future generations.
try diving out from the coral house by chinaman’s hat island, there are mounds of crushed coral out there.