Hanauma Bay Reef - Popular HI Site: 47% Bleached From 10/15 - 1/16; 10% Of Coral Killed

[hatrack]

The colorful reefs inhabiting one of Hawaii’s most popular destinations face a major threat as coral bleaching begins to take its toll. Between October 2015 and January 2016, 47 percent of the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve’s (HBNP) coral reef was bleached and nearly 10 percent of the corals were killed, according to a recent study.

Bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by changes in their environment, leading them to discharge tiny photosynthetic algae known as zooxanthellae. This destructive phenomenon has impacted Australia’s Great Barrier Reef over the past two years, leaving two-thirds of it completely bleached, according to a previous report.

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Bleaching to this extent is relatively new for the Aloha State. “There were no major bleaching events known to science until 1983,” study author Ku'ulei Rodgers told Popular Science. “Here in Hawaii, we only had a bleaching event in 1996, and then the corals recovered. Unlike many places in the world, here we did very well until 2014.” In 2014 and 2015, 90 percent of the coral reefs in the Main Hawaiian Islands – the state's eight largest islands – were bleached, and that was more than 50 percent of resulting deaths in some areas, according to the study.

“Oceans will continue to absorb a significant amount of carbon even once emissions are reduced but we must slow the increase to begin addressing the impacts of climate change,” the researchers wrote. “Sound management strategies based on scientific research will increasingly play a more important role.”

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https://weather.com/science/environment/news/hanauma-bay-nature-preserve-hawaii-coral-reef-bleaching

[riversedge]

1. AND we have idiots in the WH and their Republican minons who do not care about Mother Earth.