Dan Smale, Marine Biological Association and Thomas Wernberg, The University of Western Australia
Marine heatwaves, like their land counterparts, are growing hotter and longer. Sea species in southeastern Australia, southeast Asia, northwestern Africa, Europe and eastern Canada are most at risk.
Shark Bay was hit by a brutal marine heatwave in 2011.
W. Bulach/Wikimedia Commons
Everyone knows the Great Barrier Reef is in peril. But a continent away, Western Australia’s Shark Bay is also threatened by marine heatwaves that could alter this World Heritage ecosystem forever.
Queensland groper, typical of coral reefs off Queensland at 27°S were found in the Bay of Islands, north of Auckland, at 35°S.
from www.shutterstock.com
Jim Salinger, University of Tasmania and James Renwick, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Analysis of last summer’s heatwave shows it killed farmed salmon and decimated kelp forests, as well as shifting grape harvests and fish spawning times forward by several weeks.
This summer, coastal seas to the north and east of New Zealand are even warmer than during last year’s marine heat wave.
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Craig Stevens, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and Ben Noll, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Marine heatwaves may become the new normal for the Tasman Sea and the ocean around New Zealand, and oceanographers are developing models to better predict their intensity.
Can geoengineering buy the coral reefs more time?
Oregon State University/Flickr
Climate mitigation efforts are unlikely to be enough to save critical ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef. We may need to consider more radical environmental engineering.
Marine heatwaves can kill off species and alter ecosystems.
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Marine heatwaves have had little attention until recently, but they’re already having large effects.
Staghorn and tabular corals suffered mass die-offs, robbing many individual reefs of their characteristic shapes.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies/ Mia Hoogenboom
The 2016 bleaching event resulted in 30% mortality on the Great Barrier Reef, with many corals dying of the heat before they bleached and the loss of branching corals creating less complex reef structure.
The southern Great Barrier Reef escaped both of the recent mass bleaching events. But time is running out.
AAP Image/ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Tory Chase
Tropical coral reefs can be saved from climate change and other pressures, but the window of opportunity is closing. And reefs are guaranteed to be markedly different in the future.
The 2011 heatwave hit kelp forests hard along a long stretch of WA coast.
J. Costa
A 10-week surge in ocean temperatures off the Western Australian coast has killed off large patches of kelp forest, the “biological engine” of Australia’s southern reefs.
Tasmania’s bushfires damaged pristine bushland and stretched emergency services to the limit.
AAP Image/Patrick Caruana
This summer has seen Tasmania suffer through drought, bushfires, floods and the worst marine heatwave on record. Is this what life under a climate-changed future will be like?