14% Of All The Corals On Earth Died In Less Than 10 Years; At Same Time, Reef Algae Grew 20%
About 14% of the world’s coral has been lost in less than a decade, a study of the health of coral reefs has found. In the largest analysis of coral reef health ever undertaken, scientists found that between 2009 and 2018 the world lost about 11,700 sq km of coral – the equivalent of more than all the living coral in Australia.
Meanwhile, the report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network on Tuesday, found that reef algae, which grows when coral is under stress, soared by 20% between 2010 and 2019.
The report features data collected by more than 300 scientists from 73 countries across 40 years, including 2m individual observations.
The study, which analysed 10 regions with coral reefs, showed that coral bleaching events caused by raised sea surface temperatures were the biggest factor behind coral loss. It found that one such mass bleaching event in 1998 led to the loss of 8% of the world’s coral, or about 6,500 sq km, with the biggest impact observed in the Indian Ocean, Japan and the Caribbean.
Experts said the decline of the last decade came amid continuous raised sea surface temperatures. They called for urgent action and said climate breakdown was the biggest threat to the world’s reefs.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/05/world-coral-lost-study-shows-reef-health
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