101 °FThe temperature reached 101°F in the ocean outside Florida Keys. As in a bathtub. Or like fever. The combination of climate change and El Niño made the summer of 2023 one of the warmest ever recorded on this planet.
100 percent of the corals at Sombrero Reef died. 2 percent of the Barrier Reef in Florida is still alive. And the world’s largest organisation for the protection of the reefs, Coral Restoration Foundation, will never stop fighting for them.
As in a forest 18 feet below surface they stand. Trees full of rescued corals. Small fragments who after some time of growth will be outplanted onto the dead reefs. The organisation made the drastic decision to rescue the corals from their Coral nurseries, to tanks on land. There they were being fed and taken care of, to grow stronger. All waiting for the ocean temperature to drop.
Robyn Mast and Stephen Jellenc made some big outplants on Sombreo Reef in the spring. Some months later the corals were all dead. The temperatures rose so fast that all the corals died before they even bleached.
And then. In November. When the storms faded and the ocean cooled down, new fragments were released into the wild. The tanks on land being ready for the next summer.
We hoover over coralskeletons and remains of old outplants. The currents are strong. And then, like on the edge of a cliff, on one of the bonestuctures, a small young and wild coral lingeres. It has found a spot all by itself at the Sombrero Reef.
This is a story by me and Anna Liljemalm. Published in Forskning & Framsteg nr 3/2024.
full story at fof.se
It´s a part of a longer project.