A recent obituary regarding the death of the Great Barrier Reef has been going viral all over the web. People have been sharing the sad news on their social media accounts, mourning the loss of the magnificent coral system.
But there was only one problem with their grieving. The coral system isn't actually dead.
Food And Travel Writer Exaggerates Claims On Great Barrier Reef Dying
Rowan Jacobsen, the food and travel writer who put together the piece, exaggerated the claim and has marine biologists scowling at the spreading of misinformation. "This is a fatalistic, doomsday approach to climate change that isn't going to engage anyone and misinforms the public," Kim Cobb, a coral reef expert at Georgia Tech, said.
"There will be reefs in 2050, including portions of the Great Barrier Reef, I'm pretty confident of that. I'm put off by pieces that say we are doomed." While this is true, the coral system is indeed suffering severe stress with the quarter of the reef's coral dying off, according to The Guardian.
A massive bleaching event, caused by increasing ocean temperature, is responsible for the said destruction. It has swept coral reefs around the world but has proved most fatal to the Great Barrier Reef.
Rising Temperatures To Blame?
The event was first observed in the Hawaiian Islands in the early part of 2015 when a moderate El Nino occurred. The El Nino eventually persisted and built-up resulting in the warmest ocean waters in November 2015, Cobb noted.
The rising temperature causes the algae, the coral's food source, to become chemically damaging. In response, the coral puffs out algae of its own to protect itself, said the LA Times.
This defensive mechanism results in the coral's discoloration creating that bone-white appearance. But this doesn't necessarily imply that the coral is dead, it's just that it now lost its algae.
Scientists Irked At Article Saying The Great Barrier Reef Has Died Off
Despite this catastrophic event, corals have been observed in the past to recover from this ordeal. That is if the water temperature declines and declines quickly.
This is why scientists are irked at Jacobsen's article as it tells the public that there is nothing more that could be done wherein there's still a chance in saving the massive marine ecosystem. Genetic engineering, for instance, is a key in restoring the damage caused by bleaching.
"I have studied corals off Christmas Island in the Pacific where 85 percent of them have died, it was a graveyard. But even there, I was shocked to see remarkable resilience," said Cobb.
"Amid the graveyards of the reefs there were areas that looked like nothing had happened. There is a lot we can do to minimize climate change and we need to get going on that. To say reefs are finished and we can't do anything about it isn't the message we need going forward."
