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DRAFT November 9 2005 WORST MORTALITY EVER OF CARIBBEAN CORALS CURRENTLY UNDERWAY DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING: Policy implications of record ocean temperatures and coral reef bleaching in Small Island Developing States during 2005 Thomas J. Goreau, PhD President, Global Coral Reef Alliance BRIEFING PAPER FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF SMALL ISLAND STATES (AOSIS)
SUMMARY: Many corals all across the Caribbean region have died from heatstroke in the last few months, are now dying, or will die in the next few months. This will be the worst mortality ever in the region, with serious implications for fisheries, tourism, and shore protection. This year’s record high water temperatures have no relationship to El Nino events. In contrast to the Caribbean, impacts to Pacific and Indian Ocean island nations have been minor this year, unlike 1998. These events reiterate that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are the first and worst victims of global warming, that urgent action is overdue to halt human-caused climate change, and large scale coral reef restoration is urgently needed. BACKGROUND Coral reefs are the most vulnerable of all habitats to high temperatures. High temperature stress causes corals to turn transparent (“bleached”), and stop growing or reproducing. If the stress is brief they can recover, but if it continues they will die. Since 1990 a method developed by Caribbean marine scientists has allowed accurate prediction of the location, timing, and severity of coral bleaching events worldwide, before bleaching can even be recognized by divers (1-4). The Goreau-Hayes HotSpot method maps regions of the ocean that have monthly average temperatures 1 degree C or more above normal values for the warmest month. In round numbers, if temperatures reach this level for one month there is strong bleaching but most corals will recover if it then cools down, but if it gets 2 degrees above for one month or stays one degree above for two months, severe coral mortality follows. The Goreau-Hayes HotSpot method is widely used by NOAA, which has set up a web site dedicated to it, but without credit to the Caribbean scientists who developed it, and which focuses on effects in US and Australian waters rather than in SIDS. Since 1990 the Global Coral Reef Alliance (GCRA), a small non-profit organization, has used near-real time satellite sea surface temperature (SST) records to alert SIDS researchers of impending bleaching events. GCRA has tabulated satellite SST records in all major coral reef areas worldwide since 1982 and these are available on request from GCRA for all SIDS except for a few Caribbean islands that are very close to other tabulated sites. The GCRA database shows that all SIDS have suffered damaging high temperature events, that almost all are undergoing long term increases in SST that will be lethal for almost all corals within a decade or less, that extreme high SST events are increasing in frequency and intensity worldwide, and that intense, sudden, and widespread changes in ocean circulation are underway (5,6). THE RECORD 2005 CARIBBEAN HEAT WAVE In 2005 an unprecedented exceptionally early heat wave began in the Southwest Caribbean. Severe bleaching followed. The excessive temperatures moved to the Northern Caribbean in the following months, and then expanded to cover the entire Eastern Caribbean. The exceptionally hot waters then expanded to the Central and Western Caribbean, and then to the Southern Caribbean, with the South West Caribbean being hit with a second wave of deadly high temperatures in the same year, for the first time, which is still lingering on at time of writing even after the other areas have begun to cool down. We have never recorded such high temperatures for so long in the Caribbean. The duration and intensity were such that severe coral mortality is inevitable in most parts of the Caribbean. The North West Caribbean was the least affected because of much shorter duration of the high temperatures, brought about in part by local cooling caused by the record frequency and intensity of hurricanes in that region in 2005. It is important to note that 2005 is not an El Nino year. IMPACTS ON CARIBBEAN SIDS Although divers across the Caribbean have reported unprecedented bleaching this year, the full impacts of 2005 bleaching will not be known for at least six months to a year. Because corals respond slowly to changes in temperature, it will take a while for the worst affected corals to die, or for the survivors to recover. Only detailed comparisons after all the impacts are over with the conditions of the same reefs before will allow full estimates of the damage. However it is already clear that this year’s bleaching was the worst and most widespread ever seen in the Caribbean. Almost all corals in the Caribbean bleached, and in many places most have already died, are dying, or will die in the next few months. This will have crippling effects on biodiversity, fisheries, tourism, and shore protection across the Caribbean. IMPACTS TO PACIFIC AND INDIAN OCEAN SIDS IN 2005 It is now certain that 2005 will either be the hottest year in history or the second, behind 1998. 1998 was an El Nino year, but only global warming can explain the pattern of high temperatures that year, which did not match the well-known El Nino patterns. El Nino years greatly warm up the East Pacific, while they cool down the West Pacific and have only minor effects in the Indian Ocean and Caribbean. 1998 SST and bleaching did not follow the El Nino pattern, and devastating coral mortality took place in the East Pacific, the West Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean, i.e. world-wide. In sharp contrast, the 2005 extreme events were almost entirely confined to the Caribbean and to the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. Minor bleaching took place in Mauritius early this year, but temperatures did not get hot enough for long enough to cause serious problems. Other Indian Ocean and Pacific SIDS were lucky to escape this year, but they all have clearly rising SST trends (4,6), so it is only a matter of time before they are similarly affected again. RECOMMENDATIONS SIDS just cannot afford to sit back and watch our corals die, fish habitat vanish, beaches wash away, tourism economies collapse, and protection against global sea level rise disappear. Although we are powerless to stop the out-of-control flood of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from continental states who are not concerned about our future, there are several forms of action that we can and should take, indeed which we must take as urgently as possible if we care about future generations and the survival of low lying islands. 1. Implement large-scale coral reef restoration projects to restore fisheries, tourism, and shore protections using techniques that greatly increase coral growth rates and resistance to environmental stress, including high temperature. Only one method, the Biorock method, does so (7). Not only does this method increase coral growth rates 3-5 times, it increased coral survival from heatstroke in the Maldives during 1998 by 16 to 50 times higher than surrounding reefs (8), and turned a severely eroding Maldives beach into 15 meters (50 feet) of growth in a few years (9). 2. Support efforts to develop endogenous capacity research capability of SIDS to select and propagate high temperature tolerant corals on Biorock reefs. At present international coral reef programs are entirely based on funding that goes to support developed country institutions and “experts”, and are effectively acting to inhibit development of research and research facilities for problem-solving in SIDS through excessive reliance on foreign consultants, most of whom have little or no meaningful understanding of the situation SIDS face. 3. Develop sustainable energy resources in SIDS. All Pacific and Indian Ocean SIDS have tremendous tidal energy resources that are completely untapped, even though cost effective technology already exists to produce vast amounts of clean non-polluting energy from tidal currents (10). Most Eastern Caribbean states have adequate wind resources to provide much of their energy needs, but these are barely utilized. Larger SIDS in the central Caribbean could provide much of their energy from biomass oil and sugar crops. Until SIDS begin to move towards a sustainable energy path we will not be able to take the moral high ground with regard the major polluting countries. 4. Reduce or end local human stresses to coral reefs, including runoff of sewage and soil from land, and destructive methods of fishing that destroy reefs. 5. Take the lead in insisting that global climate change agreements effectively protect coral reefs and climate-sensitive ecosystems by ensuring that these are sufficient to protect coral reefs by stabilizing global greenhouse gas concentrations at the lowest possible level in the shortest possible time. The Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto protocols do not do this at all: even if they were lived up to they would only stabilize the RATE OF GREENHOUSE GAS INCREASE AND GLOBAL WARMING, NOT TEMPERATURE ITSELF (11-13). FURTHER INFORMATION 1. Goreau, 1990, Coral bleaching in Jamaica, Nature 343:417 http://www.globalcoral.org/Coral%20Bleaching%20in%20Jamaica.htm 2. Goreau, Hayes, et al., 1992, Elevated sea surface temperatures correlate with Caribbean coral reef bleaching, in A Global Warming Forum: Scientific, Economic, and Legal Overview, (R. A. Geyer, editor), 1992, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida USA, Chapter 9, pages 225-255. http://www.globalcoral.org/elevated_sea_surface_temperature.htm 3. Goreau & Hayes, 1994, Coral bleaching and ocean HotSpots, Ambio 22:176-180 http://www.globalcoral.org/Coral%20Bleaching%20&%20Ocean%20Hot%20Spots.pdf 4. Goreau & Hayes, 2005, GLOBAL CORAL REEF BLEACHING AND SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE TRENDS FROM SATELLITE-DERIVED HOTSPOT ANALYSIS, World Resource Review, 17: 254-293 http://global24.fatcow.com/WRR%20Goreau%20&%20Hayes%20(2)%202005.pdf 5. Goreau, Hayes, & McAllister, 2005, REGIONAL PATTERNS OF SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE RISE: IMPLICATIONS FOR GLOBAL OCEAN CIRCULATION CHANGE AND THE FUTURE OF CORAL REEFS AND FISHERIES, World Resource Review, 17: 350-374 http://global24.fatcow.com/WRR%20Goreau%20Hayes%20&%20McAlllister%20.pdf 6. Goreau & Hayes, 2005, Global Coral Reef Alliance 1982-2003 Global Coral Reef Sea Surface Temperature Database, www.globalcoral.org 7. Goreau & Hilbertz, 2005, MARINE ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION: COSTS AND BENEFITS FOR CORAL REEFS, World Resource Review, 17: 375-409 http://global24.fatcow.com/WRR%20Goreau%20&%20Hilbertz%202005.pdf 8. Goreau, Hilbertz, & Azeez Hakeem, 2000, Increased Coral and Fish Survival on Mineral Accretion Reef Structures in the Maldives after the 1998 Bleaching Event , ABSTRACTS 9th International Coral Reef Symposium, Bali, October 23-27 2000, p. 263 http://www.globalcoral.org/Increased%20Coral%20and%20Fish%20Survival%20on%20Mineral%20Accretion.htm 9. Goreau, Hilbertz, & Azeez Hakeem, 2004, MALDIVES SHORELINES: GROWING A BEACH, OpenDemocracy.net http://globalcoral.org/MALDIVES%20SHORELINES.%20GROWING%20A%20BEACH.htm 10. Goreau, Anderson, Gorlov, and Kurth, 2005, TIDAL ENERGY AND LOW-HEAD RIVER POWER: A STRATEGY TO USE NEW, PROVEN TECHNOLOGY TO CAPTURE THESE VAST, NON-POLLUTING RESOURCES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, To be presented at: UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 2006 SUSTAINABLE ENERGY CONFERENCE, New York. 11. Goreau, 1992, Global Coral Reef Alliance briefing papers for delegates to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit), and Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiators (FCCC), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 12. Goreau, 1997, Climate Change Impacts Have Been Underestimated, Making Action More Urgent Than Recognized: Briefing paper for delegates to the framework convention on climate change negotiations, Kyoto. Japan. December 1-16 1997, Tarawa, Kiribati http://www.globalcoral.org/climate_change_impacts_have_been.htm 13. Goreau, 2004, Sustainable Ocean Management for Small Island Developing States (SIDS): A Vision for the UN SIDS Summit in Mauritius, January 2005, Suva, Fiji |
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