The rise in sea water temperature in Indonesia has caused thebleaching of 60 percent of the reef coral in North Sumatra, one of the most diverse in the world, according to an article published by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
The scientists found that the bleaching or bleaching of the reef, which occurs when corals shed the algae that inhabit it, has “devastated” most of the population of this species in the Asian country.The “stress” caused by ocean temperature fluctuations has wiped out 80 percent of some coral species, and has weakened others to the point that they are not likely to survive the next few months, they noted. It is, according to the article, one of the largest coral discolorations on record.
“It is a disappointing development, especially when we consider that these same corals demonstrated their resistance to other disorders in the ecosystem, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami,” the director of the WCS Indonesia marine program explained in a statement , Stuart Campbell. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), temperatures in the Andaman Sea, which bathes the coasts of Myanmar, Thailand, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and northwestern Indonesia, has grown exponentially in recent years. . The culmination of this escalation occurred at the end of last May, whenthe temperature reached 34 degrees Celsius, four degrees above the average for the area. Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and other parts of Indonesia have also recorded similar coral bleaching phenomena, according to NOAA.
WCS, which collaborated on the study with the universities of James Cook, in Australia, and Syiah Kuala, in Indonesia, considers this to be a “tragedy” for both biodiversity and the population of the region.
