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NOAA’s estimate of coral bleaching likely two times too high
NOAA sounded the alarm yesterday that coral reefs are dying off at an unprecedented rate, even though a recent paper shows that these statements may be more alarmist than accurate. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said multi-year warm ocean temperatures are creating conditions that are causing corals to die off and turn white (bleached), and they believe that global warming is the culprit. But a new paper, published in Marine Biology in April 2015, shows that even though some corals appear bleached, it doesn’t mean they are dead, as conventional tracking methods can’t distinguish between white and bleached (dead) colonies.
The paper, by Cruz et al, says that “although bleaching leaves the coral skeleton visible under its transparent tissue, not all white coral colonies display this feature,” which “raises the question as to whether all ‘white’-shaded colonies are indeed bleached.” To answer that question of whether bleached coral is actually dead, Cruz et al studied different colored specimens of the coral M. cavernosa sampled off the east coast of Brazil, and found that white corals exhibited the same lifelike features as their multi-colored cousins.
Source: http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/noaas-estimate-of-coral-bleaching-likely-two-times-too-high.html
