'Florida is one of the states most at risk for extreme weather events, costing the state billions of dollars, staggering numbers of heat related deaths, and significant habitat destruction. It’s time to cut the politics of climate change and focus on meaningful legislation...'

Diving today was rather depressing. The world's most southern coral reef (Lord Howe Island) is currently experiencing coral bleaching, especially on the shallow lagoon reefs. #climatechange and #globalwarming are destroying the worlds coral reefs.

Terrible photoshop job….

The latest official bland account of this year’s extreme bleaching and mass mortality event on 75% of the Great Barrier Reef concedes that it is….. “significant”.

They’ll update us sometime in 2025! - long after the next meeting of the World Heritage Committee.

This👇

Now swap “forest” and “fire” with “coral reef” and “mass bleaching”

In 2024 the Great Barrier Reef experienced its 5th mass bleaching and mortality event in just 9 years.

“Rising temperatures” on Indian reefs are killing corals again this year - just like Australia, the Caribbean, and >60% of the world’s coral reefs.

(It’s almost like something GLOBAL is occurring, but of course the article doesn’t even mention greenhouse gas pollution).

I can remember when New Scientist was worth reading.

Sadly, that’s no longer true.

How exactly could you electrify tiny portions of each of the 3000 reefs along the length and breadth of the vast Great Barrier Reef with…. “a cluster of floating islands”?

This is outlandish. The Tropical Atlantic Ocean heat content is so far above normal it’s now normal for Mid August.
The stored potential energy in the Atlantic is unreal this year, building on top of last year’s absurdity. 1/

As the world's oceans continue to warm, coral bleaching is becoming more frequent and severe. xhtxs.cn/TI2

Many of the world's #coralreefs are already deathscapes, and 2024 marks yet another year of global coral bleaching. insideclimatenews.org/news/15042024/…

🚨 4th MCBE in #Huvadhu , 🇲🇻🚨

#Coralbleaching is on full throttle in #Maldives . After 8 years of recovery from the 3rd Mass Coral Bleaching event, we're facing the 4th Mass Coral Bleaching Event in just 8 years. The resilience of these reefs is being tested once again.

The world is witnessing the 4th pan-tropical coral bleaching event in 2023-2024. Wealthy countries like Australia should be leading the charge to protect reefs from greenhouse gas pollution……

$5m funding boost for Reef protection activities led by tourism operators on the #GreatBarrierReef . Funding will extend the Tourism Reef Protection Initiative. Learn more at brnw.ch/21wK11S

Well, this is truly embarrassing:

“The experts at NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch compare their Bleaching Alert Level 5 to a Category 5 hurricane in terms of impacts to coral reef ecosystems.”

Memo to Australia…..

theguardian.com/environment/ar…

Good news! International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has just clarified that we can add UN Law of the Sea to the Paris Agreement as a source of international law requiring Australia to take science-based action to move away from fossil fuels. itlos.org/fileadmin/itlo…

Back to Cayman after being away for 2 weeks. The sea felt very warm.

Last years heatwave in Little killed over 50% of our corals.

The sea is warmer than it was this time last year.

This summer does not look good.

#GlobalWarming #Bleaching #ClimateCatastrophe

It takes a LOT of heat exposure to bleach these huge, ancient slow-growing corals (Porites).

Even >2 months after sea temperatures peaked, most of them are still white or mottled.

The good news is - very few have died compared to other species growing beside them.