White alert in the oceans: global warming is having devastating effects on corals

Global warming is hitting corals particularly hard. Experts raise the white alarm for the oceans.

With the global warming It is not only the air that is overheating but also the oceans, which face unprecedented global average temperatures. It is well known that precisely the oceans are considered a sort of thermometer of climate change.

Global warming not only produces increasingly prolonged and muggy heat waves. It also has repercussions on marine environments, with effects on the ocean floor, not just on the surface. According to research that appeared on Nature Communications the “background noise” of the seas is increasingwhich absorbs 90% of the excess heat linked to emissions they are charging themselves with destructive energy becoming increasingly turbulent and stormy.

But the energy circulating in the seas – which means increasingly rough waters – is not the only effect of global warming. There is also what is called the ocean’s “white alert”.the. This time it’s about coralsLet’s see what it’s about.

Oceans, there is a white alarm in the seas, the devastating effects of global warming on corals

The white alert affects the Great Barrier Reefa, in the north-east of Australia, dealing with most serious bleaching episode ever. The local authorities announced it, with a note from the Marine Park Authority, reporting to the federal government.

The new episode of massive whiteningannounced last March, is caused by rising water temperatures. It’s about the fifth episode in eight years. The whitening phenomenon is a process that causes corals to lose their natural color. This happens due to the disappearance of symbiotic algae and photosynthetic pigments.

At the origin of the loss of color there are various stress factors: high water temperatures, poor lighting, lack of nutrients. The main stress factor, however, is undoubtedly the warming of ocean waters, a product of climate change. Increasingly frequent and harmful, bleaching can lead to the death of corals if this phenomenon becomes prolonged and serious.

The risks linked to coral bleaching do not only translate into damage to the biodiversity of the marine ecosystem, but also into negative repercussions on the economy linked to fishing. The estimates and forecasts for the future are not comforting. The highest global temperature levels at the surface of the seas have been recorded in the last 12 months. This is a phenomenon aggravated by the effects of El Niño.

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