What will you dive when the coral is gone?

I have a quandary about pushing my son to go diving (a bad thing) and him missing seeing what there is left. I am certain he will not get to show any child of his the stuff we take for granted.

Coral reefs head for 'knock-out punch'

Which links Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene

Abstract
Tropical reef systems are transitioning to a new era in which the interval between recurrent bouts of coral bleaching is too short for a full recovery of mature assemblages. We analyzed bleaching records at 100 globally distributed reef locations from 1980 to 2016. The median return time between pairs of severe bleaching events has diminished steadily since 1980 and is now only 6 years. As global warming has progressed, tropical sea surface temperatures are warmer now during current La Niña conditions than they were during El Niño events three decades ago. Consequently, as we transition to the Anthropocene, coral bleaching is occurring more frequently in all El Niño–Southern Oscillation phases, increasing the likelihood of annual bleaching in the coming decades.

 

Snorkeling for your son, perhaps? The rest is quite depressing.

 

Or the corals will adapt. There are coral species in the Red Sea that thrive in warm water. They are thought to be descendants of corals that thrived in 30 degree celsius water. There will be changes, but life will evolve and change like it has for millions of years. Extinctions are nothing new.

 

I've been involved in a number of coral 'studies'. interestingly, the funding is only available for studies that are looking to prove man is responsible for Global Warming. A number of marine scientists have had their funding refused because they wouldn't sign up to that mission statement.

I learned to dive on a Carribean island that was just at sea-level, 40 years of the sea level is rising in the media and; guess what? The island is still just at sea-level - no change.

 

If you poke around some of the cenotes close to Playa del Carmen, you will find fossilized corals millions of years old that look exactly like the corals we see today.

Lot of ice ages and warming periods over those years. Pretty safe bet that corals will be around for a long time.

 

I only hope you are right. One possibly huge factor, that didn't exist before, is man's developments along the shores and the effect that it has on the underwater environment.

 

Not everybody dives coral reefs all the time; wrecks, kelp, big animal diving at places like the Socorros, etc... Now, I love a good reef, and I don't like what I'm hearing about dire threats to the reef ecosystem.

Each generation has the opportunity to make the best of what it has to work with. How much time do you spend moping because we don't have the vast tracts of old growth forest of some centuries past? I suspect it was beautiful. But those people didn't have internet and air conditioning!

Similarly, future divers may have compact 'idiot proof' easy operating rebreather technology that lets the average diver do things mainstream rec. divers today only dream of. Maybe your grandchild will ask your son 'Did they really have to blow bubbles the whole time they were down? How heavy was that tank on their backs?'

Richard.

 

Not everyone is into diving for the pretty corals and fishies. I'll take my Great Lakes wrecks that are encrusted in mussels. Not to say that the health of coral isn't important, but it's not my focus.

 

I might have to switch my focus from dive sites to dive bars.