Transcript:

Coral reefs are extraordinarily diverse ecosystems, home to fish, sea turtles, and countless other marine species.

But reefs are in trouble. Climate change is causing more heat waves in the oceans – and when corals get hot, they bleach, expelling the algae that give them vibrant colors and food.

With time, bleached corals can recover. But they often die if heat waves last too long or occur repeatedly.

Eakin: “When you see one of these beautiful ecosystems with so much diversity and so much going on, and you see it die before your very eyes, it’s just heartbreaking.”

C. Mark Eakin is the former head of Coral Reef Watch at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In a new study, he and his colleagues found that a 2014 to 2017 heat wave caused moderate or more severe bleaching in more than half of the world’s reefs.

And it caused moderate or greater mortality in 15% of reefs.

Some groups are working to restore reefs. But as the climate warms, intense heat waves continue to put coral reefs in peril.

Eakin: “So the most important thing we can do right now is to address climate change. If we don’t do that, the rest of it is going to be futile.”

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media