After 3 Years, Global Coral Bleaching Subsiding, But Unknown Disease Wiping Out FL Reefs
The longest and most widespread coral bleaching event on record is abating. As the powerful 2015-2016 El Niño faded, the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans remained warmer than average, but they at least cooled to levels that may enable some reefs to start recovering from extreme ocean heat, according to an update from U.S. coral reef experts.
Some of the less-affected reefs are bouncing back, but areas that were hit repeatedly lost so much coral that it could take decades or centuries for the reefs to recover, and only if greenhouse gas emissions are cut to slow global warming. Scientists won't know the full scope of the damage until they compile scientific reports from the far-flung reefs.
EDIT
This summer, some coral reefs in U.S. water remain at risk from warm ocean temperatures, including in Hawaii, the Caribbean and Florida, where a new disease is compounding the damage from bleaching. U.S. Geological Survey coral researcher Ilsa Kuffner said the outbreak is "leaving a graveyard of corals" as it moves north and south from Miami. In less than six months, the new coral-killing invader had reached the southern Florida Keys.
"The ones we thought had survived the bleaching are now dying quite quickly, and we can't even figure out a specific pathogen, or how it's transmitted," she said. "We're looking at local extinction in the Florida keys for some species." Pillar corals, thought to be more resistant to bleaching, are especially vulnerable to the new disease. They are dying so quickly that biologists launched an emergency effort to preserve a few specimens in special labs, isolated from contamination. Scientists need to go beyond simply monitoring the collapse of reef ecosystems and take active conservation and restoration measures, Kuffner said.
EDIT
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21062017/coral-bleaching-reefs-noaa-el-nino-climate-change-recovery