The temporal and spatial scale of coral bleaching: chasing corals
By Ana Vila Concejo, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney
The documentary聽聽provides undeniable visual evidence that coral reefs around the world are vanishing at an unprecedented rate in coral bleaching events caused by climate change.
聽highlights the 2016 bleaching event in the northern Great Barrier Reef; this is important because it describes how coral bleaching is evident in the temporal and spatial scales, which are typically hidden from the public view. The spatial extent of the bleaching covered thousands of kilometres and expanded all over the world; the temporal scale saw coral turning white on a matter of days. This begs the question:聽what would we think if聽most of the trees in the world suddenly turned white聽in a given year?聽People would be alarmed and there would be no way to deny it; this documentary shows how this has happened to the world鈥檚 coral reefs and argues that the alarm raised has not been nearly enough for us humans to consider changing the way we live.
The effects of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef has been a component of the聽research to come from the University of Sydney鈥檚聽听补苍诲听, which have聽mostly focused on the geology and geomorphology of coral reefs at different time scales with special emphasis on the geologic resilience of the Great Barrrier Reef, and the effects that sea level change have on the morphology, hydrodynamics, and sedimentation of coral reefs; the effects of coral bleaching are also a part of their research. .
罢丑别听鈥檚 studies聽in coral reefs have shown that the Great Barrier Reef has been a resilient feature over hundreds of thousands of years. As sea levels rose and fell over the last half a million years or so, the Australian continent has seen about eight Great Barrier Reefs grow and die. Indeed, there are聽. We know that. Yet, we have established聽. We know that coral reefs are聽聽and that, without them, the coasts that they protect would be exposed to waves larger than the waves they receive now. We are also starting to聽.
The past few decades have seen聽. Consequently, coral bleaching has been happening somewhere almost every year, and in three occasions (1998, 2002, and 2016-17) this bleaching has occurred on a global scale, causing the dead of large proportions of the coral around the world.聽nt was so severe that caused the dead of 2/3 of the coral in the upper third of the Great Barrier Reef,听, in an event organised by the聽SEI, told us about their scientific findings and what needs to change if we want the Great Barrier Reef to revive for generations to come. Only recently, in the聽聽that includes creating heat resisting algae symbionts that can be frozen and released to the reef during bleaching events. However, we all know, or should know that the first step to help the reef is to change how we obtain our energy and switch to renewable energy.
Further discussion on聽,听the need for climate action and the research from the聽聽will be explored聽on October 16 2017, at聽聽This聽SEI film screening in collaboration with the Geocoastal Research Group and Sydney Ideas will be followed by a panel discussion featuring聽Assoc Prof.聽Ana Vila Concejo聽(chair),听Prof. Iain McCalman,听Prof. Maria Byrne,听Assoc Prof. Jody Webster, and聽David Ritter.聽
聽My career started in Spain, where I did my undergraduate and MSc studying urban beaches at the University of Vigo; and Portugal, where I completed my PhD at the University of Algarve investigating the short and medium term evolution of tidal inlets in a barrier island system. Then I moved to Australia and started looking into the morphodynamics of flood-tide deltas in wave-dominated coasts within the framework of an ARC funded linkage project which was based in Port Stephens. In 2010 I started researching the morphodynamics of coral reefs, particularly the processes that transport and accumulate sand in backreef environments and the role that reefs have as wave dissipaters. In 2011 I was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship to support my coral reefs morphodynamics research and to continue the studies in the聽. I am the Deputy Director of聽; between 2012 and 2015 I was the Director.
Header image: by Sabangvideo via Shutterstock, Stock photo ID: 669591700.