An unprecedented coral bleaching episode has spread to 84 percent of the world’s reefs in an unfolding human-caused crisis that could kill off swathes of the essential ecosystems, scientists warned yesterday.
Since it began in early 2023, the global coral bleaching event has mushroomed into the biggest and most intense on record, with reefs across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans affected.
Coral turns ghostly white under heat stress and the world’s oceans have warmed over the past two years to historic highs, driven by the release of planet-warming greenhouse gases.
Photo: Violeta J Brosig / Minderoo Foundation / AFP
Reefs can rebound from the trauma, but scientists said that the window for recovery was getting shorter as ocean temperatures remained higher for longer.
Conditions in some regions were extreme enough to “lead to multispecies or near complete mortality on a coral reef,” the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
The latest episode was so severe and lasting that even more resilient coral was succumbing, said Melanie McField, the director of Healthy Reefs for Healthy People, which specializes in the Caribbean.
“If you continue to have heat wave after heat wave, it’s hard to see how that recovery is going to happen,” the veteran reef scientist said from Florida.
Bleaching occurs when coral expels algae that provide not just their characteristic color, but food and nutrients, leaving them exposed to disease and possibly eventually death.
Live coral cover has halved since the 1950s due to climate change and environmental damage, the International Coral Reef Initiative, a global conservation partnership, said in a statement yesterday.
Scientists forecast that at 1.5°C of warming, about 70 to 90 percent of the world’s coral reefs could disappear — a disastrous prospect for people and the planet.
Coral reefs support not just marine life, but hundreds of millions of people living in coastal communities around the world by providing food, protection from storms, and livelihoods through fishing and tourism.
Mass coral bleaching was first observed in the early 1980s and is one of the best known and most visible consequences of steadily rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
RSS