?If you want to see a coral reef, go now, because they just won?t survive in their current state.? That's the travel advice from reef monitors after they announced the biggest loss of Caribbean coral ever seen.
Biologist Jeff Miller says it?s an unprecedented die-off
: ?Colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months.?
Hot sea temperatures ? the result of global warming and events like El Nino ? cause the symbiotic algae, which live within coral and provide its food, to die and turn white. If this bleaching lasts for more than a week, the risk of coral dying soars ? and in 2005 it remained hot for months. It then got even worse, when disease struck the weakened coral.
If anything the situation elsewhere is even worse, with the more excitable experts calling the loss in Indian and Pacific Ocean reefs in the past few years an ?underwater holocaust?.
Maybe there'll be a short term boost for the diving tourism industry, with people scrambling to catch a last glimpse. But, as usual, the poorest will suffer most of the negative effects of coral loss: reefs limit damage from hurricanes and tsunamis
; they support important fish populations; and are key parts of small island economies
So what to do? Restoring damaged reefs has shown debatable success
and some think coral will recover by itself. There?s a little hope in evidence that coral may be adapting
to warmer waters by ditching its long-term algae partner for different algae that tolerates the heat better.