The Merits of a Study on How Climate Change Impacts Coral Bleaching

This source gives detail on how climate variability and change has impacted coral bleaching. It is explained how coral reefs have evolved over millions of years to be able to handle disturbances in climate change. The ecosystem has been impacted by overfishing and other destructive fishing practices. The author uses data to understand thermal stress and bleaching patterns across the world. This source will help me with my research because they use more detail when discussing thermal stress and satellite observations, all of which will be able to help me discuss the causes of coral bleaching.

This article explains the severity of coral bleaching, if certain taxa of coral react differently based on when their location, and when they’ve been previously bleached. They compared the bleaching susceptibility within coral taxa and difference in locations but did no find any significant differences but there was a significant difference between bleaching locations with contrasting thermal histories.

The data can be led to support that corals in regions with variable temperatures are more resistant to thermal stress. This can be incorporated in my research by letting me talk about more specific types of corals and how they react differently under thermal stress. I’ll also be able to use conclusion of this article to explain location differences among coral bleaching.

This paper describes the massive bleaching that occurred in the northeast Caribbean area. The massive bleaching occurred because of a spike in water temperatures in the summer of 2005. Around 90% of the Caribbean coral that was researched showed signs of paling. A disease was affecting these coral at different times and was increasing rapidly. They sampled the coral in the Virgin Islands and it was shown that the coral cover was lost by these diseases which was before the bleaching even occurred.

This study suggests that coral in the Caribbean can be recovered from massive bleaching events when waters return to normal but are highly susceptible to diseases for several months. This is a helpful study for my research because I get another cause of the degradation of corals which is diseases and it ties back to warmer water temperatures. I can use the graphs that explain how certain species of coral react pre-bleaching and post-bleaching as well as the information on mean coral cover.

This paper focuses more on the climate change of the entire marine ecosystem. It talks about how anthropogenic climate change is negatively impacting the oceans. There’s a lot of basic information as well as in depth graphs and figures that will help me understand the ecosystem as a whole better.

They touch on coral reefs in the fact they are so important to being habitats for organisms of the oceans. I will be able to use this paper in my research by using the rates of change figures and incorporating the fact there is climate change occurring in the marine ecosystem. I also wanted my research to include how extreme events in the ocean has caused and will continue to cause many chain reactions over time.