coral reef tagged posts

Yesterday at COP27, the U.S. Government announced the Red Sea Initiative – a major new initiative aimed at conserving the Red Sea’s coastal ecosystem, while promoting high-value, low-environmental impact ecotourism. 

Through an initial U.S. Government contribution of $15 million, the Red Sea Initiative plans to: 

● Protect the Red Sea’s coral reef and surrounding coastal ecosystem against the impacts of climate change and human activity; 

● Empower local communities to lead on climate action; 

● Establish a blended finance mechanism to support businesses in building resilience against climate change, reducing emissions, and creating jobs; and 

● Partner with private businesses and other donors to leverage up to $50 million in total funding. 

To advance the w...

On the sidelines of the UN Oceans Conference, held from 27 June to 1 July 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal, the governments of Portugal and Kenya co-organised a forum on investment in the sustainable blue economy. One of the outcomes of the initiative was an increase in the capital of the Global Coral Reef Fund (GCRF). With two new commitments totalling US$18 million, the GFCR’s capital now stands at US$170 million.

The larger of the two contributions is from Builders Vision, an impact platform offering philanthropic tools and versatile investments to individuals and organisations committed to sustainable development. Builders Vision is investing US$5-10 million in the RFCG’s equity fund, as well as contributing US$5 million to the RFCG’s catalytic grant fund.

Bloomberg Philanthropies...

Coral reefs have complex soundscapes – created by fish and other creatures living there – which can be used by scientists to measure coral health. However, traditional acoustic surveys of reefs rely on labor-intensive methods which face significant difficulties in assessing reef health through the use of individual recordings. Now, a research team led by the University of Exeter has trained a computer algorithm using multiple recordings of both healthy and degraded reefs, allowing the machine to learn the difference. When fed new data, this algorithm was able to successfully identify reef health 92 percent of the time.    

“Coral reefs are facing multiple threats including climate change, so monitoring their health and the success of conservation projects is vital,” said stu...

Coral reefs are complex, large underwater ecosystems that support marine life both as a form of food and shelter for fish. Over the years, the climate crisis has marked an end date for these vibrant marine structures, based on a new study in the Caribbean where marine ecologists warn that coral extinction is imminent if global temperatures continue to rise.

The new study followed recent research regarding the increasing risk brought by ocean warming to coral reef systems, placing them in the state of coral bleaching and eventual death.

Previous scientific papers have also revealed a drastic coral population decline across the globe, including in the Great Barrier Reef.

In addition to natural hazards, human-related activities such as overfishing and the use of explosive devices in...

Coral species exhibit different temperature tolerances. This is in part due to the composition of their microalgae symbionts. With a new method, researchers from Uppsala University were able to predict how individual microalgae might behave under future temperature stress and identify more tolerant coral symbionts. In combination with forthcoming single cell selection and growth experiments, the identification of climate resilient cells provides opportunity to help mitigate the effects of coral bleaching.

Coral reefs provide sustenance and income to an estimated half billion people, attract tourists, protect coastlines and are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on our planet. Despite their importance, more than half of the world’s coral reefs are now under stress, primarily due to cl...

Scientists have mapped coral reefs in the Caribbean to identify those most likely to survive climate change. Corals with the highest potential to escape destruction from marine heat waves are predominantly located along the northern shoreline of Cuba. And other promising sites are clustered around the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Haiti, eastern Jamaica, and the US state of Florida.

Coral reefs are wonders of the ocean.

Made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny creatures, they are one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet.

According to a recent IPCC report (top-level UN reports written by scientists), at up to 1.5C of warming, only 10 to 30% of coral reefs are expected to survive. If warming is above that, survival prospects plummet drastically.

• Five things...

Coral reefs are being hit by climate change in just about every way possible. Wildfire, drought and other land-based climate disasters have captured global headlines, but coral reefs have been bleaching at record levels, and as such their future is uncertain. The science of climate change’s impact on coral reefs is simple. As humans pump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, the ocean acts as a carbon sink, absorbing carbon dioxide (CO₂) and dissolving it into acid. 

As a result, ocean acidity has increased by about 25 percent since the early 19th century, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That acidity is incredibly harmful to coral reefs...

Fish communities on Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef may become less colorful as oceans warm and corals bleach, according to a new Australian study that looked at changes in reef health, coral types, and resident fish over three decades.   

“Future reefs may not be the colorful ecosystems we recognize today,” write marine ecologist Chris Hemingson and his James Cook University colleagues in their paper, published in Global Change Biology.

“Our findings suggest that reefs may be at a critical transition point and might be poised to become much less colorful in the coming years.”

The study, which comes weeks after the Great Barrier Reef was struck by another widespread bleaching event fueled by rising carbon emissions, focused on reefs surrounding Orpheus Island, which is ...

“The planet is facing a triple crisis — climate disruption, biodiversity loss and pollution,” the United Nations Secretary-General said, adding that “we need the international community to intensify efforts to protect the ocean.”

Speaking at the recent One Ocean Summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The ocean shoulders much of the burden. It serves as a giant carbon and heat sink. As a result, the ocean is growing warmer and more acidic, polar ice is melting and global weather patterns are changing. Ocean ecosystems are suffering. So, too, are the communities who rely on them. More than 3 billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods. The number of marine species is dropping. Coral reefs are dying.

“Coastal ecosystems have...

A new study has revealed that a 1.5°C increase in temperatures will result in virtually every single coral on the planet bleaching, scientists are warning. The research found that only a minuscule 0.2% of reefs would escape at the bleaching events.

The team of researchers from James Cook University, the University of Leeds and Texas Tech University used the latest climate modeling data to demonstrate the catastrophe facing our coral reefs as a result of the earth warming.

The study found that even areas that were perceived to be able to withstand the rising temperature would not be able to, and the corals would enter into bleaching events.

However, things may not be total doom, and there is a ray of hope.

The lead author of the study Adele Dixon, a Ph.D. candidate at the Univ...