Coral bleaching found in deeper water, scientist says
STORY: Coral bleaching is occurring in deeper waters, according to Luiz Rocha with the Californian Academy of Sciences.
Rocha recently completed a dive to mesophotic levels – around 328 to 492 feet underwater – in the Coral Sea and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
“This different salinity, different temperature water sits on the top. That's the one that is most influenced by the sun. But the bottom layers of the ocean, even though they're colder, they are also warming. Same way that the top layer is.” // “I think it would be like, maybe if I studied birds and I went to the rainforest and I saw the rainforests being taken down.”
Despite its extensive protection, Rocha said the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is dying because of uncontrollable factors.
“When I see it happening in a place like that is what stuns me the most. It's that there's there's very little we can do about it as individuals.”
The last global mass coral bleaching event saw the Great Barrier Reef lose nearly a third of its corals from 2014 to 2017.
This year appears to be following a similar trend with reports of extensive bleaching across the Caribbean and the entirety of the Great Barrier Reef.
"If the bleaching continues the way it is, 50 years from now - right now we're facing like a big decline in populations - 50 years from now we might be facing extinction."
