Edited by: Jina Aryaan
Recently, I watched a documentary called “Chasing Coral”. The documentary made me aware of an issue that doesn’t get enough attention: coral bleaching.
Coral bleaching is occurring at an extremely rapid rate in many parts of our world’s oceans. These events can occur with extremely small changes in the ocean environment, and are increasing in frequency across the world. Bleaching has been happening since the 1980s, and is projected to get much worse in the future. As students who will be leading the world and making changes in the future, increasing our awareness about this issue is important, and we must prepare ourselves to make the right systemic changes to stop this from happening.
What causes reefs to die?
Reefs can bleach from seemingly insignificant changes in the water. Most of these changes are currently caused by the release of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As these gases are released into the atmosphere, they eventually return to the surface by condensation. The water from this rain is mostly absorbed by the oceans. The gases make the ocean water more acidic, which makes it hard for the coral to continue constructing their skeletons.
Global warming also causes the water temperatures to rise. Even a 1ºC change in the temperature can cause the coral reefs to begin bleaching. Warm or acidic waters are not an ideal environment for the algae that live in and provide nutrients for the coral. The lack of nutrients can cause the coral to eventually stop growing and die, turning a white or bright green colour.
Consequences of not acting on this issue:
As coral reefs die, the animals that live in the reef may either leave to find another location or die as well. This is because these animals are not gaining enough from the reef anymore, whether it be nutrition or shelter. The result of this can be whole groups of living organisms getting destroyed. Coral reefs that have already begun bleaching can do so even more due to a lack of nutrients from these animals. In the long-term, this can cause a decrease in the species diversity of the ocean, as more species die out due to a lack of a reef environment.
As humans, we can also be affected by the bleaching of reefs! Many island and coast communities depend on reefs for many essentials, including nutrition, tourism and coastal protection from tsunamis and such. Mass bleaching events, and the subsequent loss of species in these reefs, can greatly impact these populations.
What can we do to stop or slow this process?
Reefs are experience mass bleaching events almost regularly these days. The documentary revealed a bleaching event in the Great Barrier Reef, which resulted in the whole section of coral dying within three months! It is time for us to take action and preventing this from increasing.
As mentioned before, a main source of coral bleaching is the impact of global warming on the ocean, so we must definitely strengthen our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas release into the atmosphere.
Reefs also experience damage from improper scuba-diving and snorkeling habits. Touching or anchoring boats to corals can kill many of the animals in the reef, which can result in the reef itself bleaching due to a lack of nutrition or protection. Scuba-divers and snorkelers should definitely try to avoid contact with the reefs.
Another significant step is spreading the word about this phenomenon. As scientists in the documentary mentioned, the ocean is completely out of our sight; likely you are not observing these reefs and how they are most days of your life. But it is definitely is possible to become more aware of what’s happening and what will happen by doing some research – the documentary is a great place to start, since it’s available on Netflix.
We should act fast and do our best to save these reefs. They’re a beautiful and important part of our oceans, and we shouldn’t be unfortunate enough to see them go in our lifetimes. So let’s take some action!