[Coral-List] Decline of Red Sea coral reefs

[Mbije Nsajigwa]

Pawlik,
I am not sure whether you have measured climate change, storms or pollution
which to relate to the coral demise. Moreover, some of these deaths are
natural and very necessary to the coral reef ecosystem dynamics. Let us not
all jump to these very recent and generalised conclusions which in fact may
not necessarily be the prime cause of the deaths. Marine transport,
pollution and plastics have all along been neglected despite their
potential lethal effects to the reefs.

Regards,
Dr. Nsajigwa Emmanuel Mbije
Department of Wildlife Management
College of Forestry, Wildlife and Tourism
Sokoine University of Agriculture
*P.O. Box 3073 Morogoro, Tanzania*
Telephone: +255 23 2601376
Fax +255 23 2604648
Or:+255 23 2601699: Mob +255 784 797425


On Fri, 23 Feb 2024 at 17:48, Pawlik, Joseph via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Greetings, list,
>
> More sad news about which you may not be aware: Red Sea coral reefs are
> rapidly losing coral cover from south to north because of summer high
> temperature events and unprecedented storms. Some of us had hoped that
> these reefs were resistant to climate change impacts, but evidently not.
>
> Here is a video that shows the dramatic change in coral cover between 2019
> and 2023 (effects of 5 summers) on reefs south of Marsa Alam, Egypt.
>
> https://youtu.be/_-v7s4eBok0
>
> Note the recently dead and toppled Porites lutea - many of these heads are
> hundreds, if not thousands of years old.
> The video also shows dead reefs south of Al Lith on the Saudi Arabian side
> of the Red Sea - this is further south of the Egyptian reefs in the first
> part of the video, and these reefs died before 2017.
>
> Important relative to recent discussions on this list is that these tragic
> losses are due entirely to high temperature events - these reefs are not
> impacted by human settlements or sources of pollution, nor is there
> evidence of disease events.
>
> Regards,
>
> Joe
>
> **************************************************************
>
> Joseph R. Pawlik
>
> Frank Hawkins Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology
>
> Dept. of Biology and Marine Biology
>
> UNCW Center for Marine Science
>
> 5600 Marvin K Moss Lane
>
> Wilmington, NC  28409
>
> Office:(910)962-2377; Cell:(910)232-3579
>
> Website: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html
>
> PDFs: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html
>
> Video Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011
>
> **************************************************************
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>