The End of Coral Reef Diving?

Have we Boomers seen the best of coral reef diving? Is there any hope?

CNN reports that the mass bleaching of coral reefs worldwide since February 2023 has been the most extensive on record. Climate change is fueling record and near-record ocean temperatures throughout the world. In October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that, according to satellite data, a staggering 77 percent of the world's coral reef areas - from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Indian oceans - have been subjected to bleaching-level heat stress.

The NOAA Coral Reef Authority declared it a global bleaching event in April 2024, making it the fourth since 1998. From 2014 to 2017, mass bleaching affected about 66 percent of the world's reef area.

Triggered by heat stress in warm oceans, coral bleaches when corals expel the colorful algae living in their tissues. Without these helpful algae, the corals become pale and are vulnerable to starvation and disease. A bleached coral is not dead, but ocean temperatures need to cool off for any hope of recovery.

At least 14 percent of the world's remaining corals are estimated to have died in the previous two global bleaching events.

Though this mass bleaching is already the most widespread, affecting reefs in 74 countries and territories, NOAA has stopped short of calling it the "worst" on record. In the coming months and years, scientists will conduct underwater assessments of dead corals to help tally up the severity of the damage.

In response to the bleaching record, scientists, world leaders, and the global funding community met in Colombia at the end of October to discuss last-ditch strategies to avert the functional extinction of corals, including further protections and financing. They have a difficult job ahead. (CNN)