[Coral-List] Cold Water Bleaching

[andy cornish]

Dear Zoe and all,

>From my observations cold-water bleaching is not that
uncommon in the winters in Hong Kong (86 coral species
in small shallow coral communities) where the mean
water temp reaches 16 dec C, and for very brief
periods down to 12 deg C in some winters (from data
loggers hidden in the coral community). I do not
recall seeing coral mortality as a result but some
fish mortality has occured.

Best wishes,

Andy  

--- Gene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu> wrote:

> Dear Zoe, Thanks for the observation of cold water
> bleaching. In the 
> Paper by Hudson et al., (  Hudson, J. H., Shinn, E.
> A., Halley, R. 
> B., and Lidz, B., 1976, Sclerochronology--a tool for
> interpreting 
> past environments: Geology, v. 4, p. 361-364 ) it
> was noted that 
> there was a distinct stress band that formed in 1942
> in M. annularis 
> at Hens and Chickens reef off Key Largo, Florida. In
> fact the same 
> stress band was later found in many other M.
> annularis heads 
> throughout the Keys. Hudson  therefore concluded it
> was a cold water 
> stress band because it looked like the stress band
> created by the 
> freeze of 1969/70 that killed most of the
> 200-year-old heads at Hens 
> and Chickens. That cold spell also decimated
> tropical fish in the 
> Keys. At the time he did that research no warm water
> bleaching event 
> had occurred and thus no one knew what record a
> bleaching event 
> preserved in the coral skeleton.  When we did
> finally did get to see 
> the recorded stress bands produced by bleaching in
> the 1980s it 
> looked just like stress band made in 1942. That
> seemed logical since 
> that was during a period of world wide warming.
> However, I  recently 
> had some Carbon and Oxygen isotope measurements done
> on the the 
> banding formed before, during, and after 1942, to
> see if it would 
> confirm a warming event. The data did not confirm a
> warm water 
> bleaching event.  Hudson's original interpretation
> therefore was 
> likely correct. It also confirmed my mothers
> observation that the 
> winter of 1942 in Key West was so cold that people
> tore up and burned 
> wooden sidewalks to keep warm. Gene
> 
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> >Today's Topics:
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> >    1. cold water bleaching (Zoe Richards)
> >
> >
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >Message: 1
> >Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 10:01:59 +1000 (EST)
> >From: Zoe Richards <zoe.richards at jcu.edu.au>
> >Subject: [Coral-List] cold water bleaching
> >To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >Message-ID:
> <20080516100159.BRJ83806 at mirapoint-ms1.jcu.edu.au>
> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> >
> >Hi Alan and coral-listers,
> >I find the concept of cold-water bleaching very
> interesting.
> >I observed what appeared to be cold-water bleaching
> at Orpheus 
> >Island on the Great Barrier Reef in August (Winter)
> of 2005. 
> >Preceding this observation was two weeks of very
> strong SE trade 
> >winds that brought cold southerly waters far north
> along the East 
> >Australian coastline - these conditions also caused
> a large amount 
> >of coastal erosion along the northern beaches of
> Townsville.   I 
> >observed bleaching in three bays (little Pioneer,
> Pioneer and 
> >Cattle) and it appeared only shallow water (<5m)
> Acropora species 
> >(e.g. A. millepora) were affected. When I returned
> 2 months later 
> >there were no apparent signs of the bleaching event
> - so it was my 
> >impression at the time that the corals recovered.
> >Hope this adds to the global picture of cold-water
> bleaching events 
> >and inspires people to incorporate cold-water
> bleaching in future 
> >bleaching experiments.
> >
> >Cheers Zoe Richards
> >
> >James Cook University
> >zoe.richards at jcu.edu.au
> >
> >
> >------------------------------
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> >End of Coral-List Digest, Vol 59, Issue 15
> >******************************************
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> 
> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> ------------------------------------
> -----------------------------------
> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> University of South Florida
> Marine Science Center (room 204)
> 140 Seventh Avenue South
> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
> Tel 727 553-1158---------------------------------- 
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