A widespread Pacific coral bleaching was noted by scientists on Monday particularly in the Marshall Islands. Marine researchers said it is the worst-ever coral bleaching experienced across the entire northern Pacific as climate change threatens ocean reefs.
"The worst coral bleaching event ever recorded for the Marshall Islands has been occurring since mid-September," University of Hawaii's Majuro-based marine scientist Karl Fellenius stated, as reported by The Telegraph UK.
The Pacific coral bleaching was believed to be the effect of rising ocean temperatures affecting delicate coral reefs as an El Niño weather pattern has been developing in recent months. Discovery News reported the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned about increasing sea temperatures this month. The warning came on the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Lima, Peru that revealed 2014 as the hottest year on record.
"What is particularly unusual and alarming this year are the high temperatures of vast areas of the ocean surface," WMO chief Michel Jarraud said.
Last month, the Asian Development bank also cautioned that widespread coral bleaching on Pacific Island nations would have a significant impact as several of which heavily depends on tourism. Based on the report by Mashable, one of the most powerful El Niño events recorded was in 1998 where the Pacific Ocean temperatures increased to such peaks that nearly 20 percent of the world's coral reefs experienced major bleaching.
From that incident, several reefs have never fully recovered. Now, over a decade later, scientists warned climate change or global warming seemed to be reprising the damage it had done as a super El Niño phenomenon raised ocean temperature so high across the Pacific, which triggered another vital coral bleaching occurrence.
Meanwhile, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch programme manager C. Mark Eakin said the recent observations revealed the coral bleaching problem was widespread across the northern Pacific waters particularly in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, the northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), the Marshall Islands, and Kiribati.
"Thermal stress levels set new record highs in CNMI and the NWHI and we saw the first widespread bleaching event in the main Hawaiian Islands," Eakin said.
Coral bleaching occurs when the photosynthesizing algae on which the reef-building creatures depend for energy disappear. Deprived of these for even a few weeks, the corals die. And ABC News reported when the bleached coral was becoming covered with algae, it hindered its chances of recovery.
Though scientists said coral bleaching is a naturally occurring phenomenon, the scale that the Pacific islands are experiencing are extreme. Because of this, the world's ocean is at great risk for damages brought by the drastic effects of climate change and global warming.
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