{"id":21184,"date":"2016-06-23T15:42:16","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T20:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21184"},"modified":"2016-06-23T15:42:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T20:42:16","slug":"climates-coral-killers-move-in-swiftly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21184","title":{"rendered":"Climate\u2019s coral killers move in swiftly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Climate\u2019s coral killers move in swiftly<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Desolate seascape of bleached corals on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Image:\u00a0John Howell<\/a>\u00a0via Flickr<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Worst-ever bleaching event affects 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef as rising temperatures and sea levels bring swift death to vast swathes of colourful corals.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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LONDON, 23 June, 2016<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Corals affected by mass bleaching on the northern Great Barrier Reef are \u201cthe sickest\u201d Australian scientists have ever seen.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0corals have been hit by unusually high sea temperatures<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a consequence of El Ni\u00f1o, the periodic blister of heat that bubbles up in the Pacific and started in full force last year.<\/p>\n

Corals thrive in tropic seas, but, like all animals, there is a limit to their heat tolerance. And in a year in which global temperatures each month have set new all-time records, even the corals are feeling the heat, scientists told this week\u2019s\u00a013th International Coral Reef Symposium<\/a>\u00a0in Honolulu, Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Terry Hughes, director of the\u00a0ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies<\/a>\u00a0(CoralCoE) at James Cook University in Queensland, said: \u201cWe measured the condition of surviving corals as part of our extensive underwater surveys of Australia\u2019s worst-ever bleaching event. We found that coral bleaching has affected 93% of the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

Counteract damage<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the central and southern regions have escaped with minor damage, nearly half of the corals have been killed by mass bleaching in the northern region.\u201d<\/p>\n

His CoralCoE colleague, Bill Leggat, head of the Symbiosis Genomics Research Group, said: \u201cNormally, when bleaching kills corals it is a slow death that progresses steadily when temperatures remain high. The corals usually rely on mechanisms that help them fight and counteract the damage. But this time, on some reefs, it looks like they have died very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate\u2019s coral killers move in swiftly Desolate seascape of bleached corals on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Image:\u00a0John Howell\u00a0via Flickr Worst-ever bleaching event affects 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef as rising temperatures and sea levels bring swift death to vast swathes of colourful corals. LONDON, 23 June, 2016\u00a0\u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,1414,11565],"class_list":["post-21184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-great-barrier-reef","tag-tim-radford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21185,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21184\/revisions\/21185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}