Temperatures up to 33 degrees: coral bleaching in the Caribbean worse than ever before Israel attacks Hamas post after clashes at Gaza border

According to researchers, corals are currently dying off the coast of Mexico at an unprecedented rate. Persistent very high water temperatures, which can last for weeks to months, have led to severe coral bleaching in the Caribbean and also in the Mexican Pacific Ocean, says Lorenzo Álvarez-Filip of the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Academic Unit for Reef Systems.

“What our tests and analyzes show is impressive. I have never seen anything like this before,” said the expert from the German news agency after his recent dive in Puerto Morelos, near the holiday resort of Cancún. As a result of climate change, sea temperatures of up to 33 degrees Celsius were recently measured there, three degrees above the historical average. The corals were exposed to the high temperatures for up to twenty weeks. This stress makes their recovery more difficult. Many have already died.

Bleaching is the bleaching of the often colorful corals. They live with different colored algae in a community for mutual benefit. However, at high temperatures the corals repel the algae and therefore lose their color. They no longer grow and are less able to defend themselves against enemies and competitors. If the microalgae return within a certain time because the water temperature drops again, the coral can recover – otherwise it will die.

The so-called cnidarians are also increasingly bleaching on other coral reefs in the Atlantic Ocean and at Huatulco on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast. Coral bleaching has already been reported off the coasts of Florida, Cuba, Belize, Panama, the Bahamas, Antigua, the US Virgin Islands, Colombia and Puerto Rico, according to the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN). (sda/dpa)