Jack Kiefer Earth Science Current Event # 1

Mrs. McClellan 10/9/15

Citation: Press, The Associated. "Scientists: Major Coral Bleaching Crisis Spreads Worldwide." New York Times 8 Oct. 2015: n. pag. Print.

URL:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/10/08/science/ap-us-sci-bleached-coral.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=sectionfront

The article that I read for my current event was about how scientists are starting to see that many coral reefs worldwide are being bleached and then dying. The scientists say that it is likely to get worse, and that it is the result of global warming and the El Nino (a slight warming of the Pacific Ocean water), which are making the water warmer. Supposedly, the “excessive heat stresses the living coral, which turns white and then becomes vulnerable to disease”, leading to its death. There have been two other global coral bleaching events in history, both when there have been super El Ninos, in 1997-1998, and in 2007-2008. The 98’ bleaching has been the worst so far, but this worldwide bleaching that is occurring right now is shaping up to be the worst in history. Mark Eakins, a coral reef expert, predicts that, “we may be… losing somewhere in the range of 10 to 20 percent of the coral reefs this year”, which is a lot of reef space.

This coral epidemic started in Guam, then moved to Hawaii, and started to take over more of the Pacific and Indian oceans. Experts are especially worried about the conditions in Hawaii, which already endured a bad bleaching period in 2014. It is also starting to move to the Caribbean and places like Florida. This state was hit towards the end of this past summer. Some parts of Florida seem to be unaffected by the bleaching, while reefs further south on the peninsula are much more damaged. Virtual programs predict that the Australian Great Barrier Reef will feel the affects of the outbreak late next year.  

The bleaching of the coral reefs has many affects on society. For one, it greatly impacts the environment. “Even though coral reefs are one-tenth of 1 percent of the ocean floor by area, they are home to 25 percent of the world's fish species”, which means that the more coral that is destroyed, the more fish will die because their ecosystem will be demolished. If all of the coral dies, then we will lose a quarter of the fish population in the world. Coral reefs also protect the shore by absorbing a lot of the energy from waves. If the reefs are gone, the protection is gone and many settlements and beaches may be destroyed from tsunamis and storms. Coral reefs are also essential to the economy, as they, “produce tourism dollars and help provide food for 500 million people around the world”. Many people every year go on vacations where they scuba dive and snorkel around reefs, and if those reefs die, then many companies and employees will be out of a job, because a whole industry and line of work will be gone.

Overall, this article was well written. The authors gave good information. They explained things that the reader might not know, for example what El Nino is. They also explained why the topic was important to the world, which is essential when writing an article about an issue such as this. Another thing that was good about the article was that there were a lot of quotes from professionals in the field, such as Mark Eakin, a coral reef watcher from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Gregor Hodgson, a marine ecologist. However, there were some things that could have been fixed. For one thing, the authors were repetitive at times. El Nino and global warming were mentioned as the cause of the coral bleaching twice, and the warm water leaving the coral vulnerable to disease was also mentioned twice as the cause of the coral dying. This redundancy could have been simply fixed by condensing the two mentionings of these topics.