New Study Shows that Florida’s Reefs Cannot Endure a ‘Cold Snap’
Scientists detail unprecedented loss of coral reef species during 2010 cold weather event
Miami — August 26, 2011 — Remember frozen iguanas falling from trees during Florida’s 2010 record-breaking cold snap? Well, a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science shows that Florida’s corals also dropped in numbers due to the cold conditions.
“It was a major setback,” said Diego Lirman, associate professor at the UM Rosenstiel School and lead author of the study. “Centuries-old coral colonies were lost in a matter of days.”
The chilly January temperatures caused the most catastrophic loss of corals within the Florida Reef Tract, which spans 160 miles (260 kilometers) from Miami to the Dry Tortugas and is the only living barrier reef in the continental U.S.
Members of the Florida Reef Resilience Program, a group comprised of Florida scientists and resource managers, conducted a month-long survey of 76 reefs sites from Martin County to Key West, both during and shortly after the unusually cold weather.
The research team compared the mortality rates of corals from the cold event to warm-water events, such as the highly publicized bleaching event in 2005, and concluded that the cold-water event cause even more widespread morality than previous warm-water events. The results were published in the August 2011 issue of the journal PLoS One.
The study found coral tissue mortality reached over 40-percent for several important reef-building species and that large colonies in shallow and near-shore reefs were hardest hit. This is in contrast to a less than one-percent tissue mortality caused by warm-water events since 2005. Coral species that had previously proven tolerant to higher-than-normal ocean temperatures were most affected by the cold-water event.
“This was undoubtedly the single worst event on record for Florida corals,” said Lirman.
Ice-cold Arctic air swept into Florida in early January 2010, plummeting air temperatures to an all-time low of 30°F (1°C) and dropping ocean temperatures to a chilly 51°F (11°C).
“The 2010 cold-water anomaly not only caused widespread coral mortality but also reversed prior resistance and resilience patterns that will take decades to recover,” the study’s authors conclude.
Florida’s reefs are located in a marginal environment at the northernmost limit for coral development. Corals have adapted to a specific temperature range and are typically not found in areas where water temperatures drop below 60°F (16°C).
Changes in climate patterns as well as others impacts, such as coastal development, pollution, overfishing and disease have put added stress on coral reefs worldwide. The authors cite the need to improve ecosystem resilience through reef restoration, pollution reduction efforts and the use of management tools, such as marine protected areas, in order for coral reefs to survive future large-scale disturbances.
“We can’t protect corals from such an extreme event but we can mitigate other stresses to help them recover,” said Lirman.
The paper, titled “Severe 2010 Cold-Water Event Caused Unprecedented Mortality to Corals of the Florida Reef Tract and Reversed Previous Survivorship Patterns,” was supported by the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, The Nature Conservancy, and the ARRA program.
About the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School
The University of Miami’s mission is to educate and nurture students, to create knowledge, and to provide service to our community and beyond. Committed to excellence and proud of the diversity of our University family, we strive to develop future leaders of our nation and the world. Founded in the 1940’s, the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science has grown into one of the world’s premier marine and atmospheric research institutions. Offering dynamic interdisciplinary academics, the Rosenstiel School is dedicated to helping communities to better understand the planet, participating in the establishment of environmental policies, and aiding in the improvement of society and quality of life. For more information, please visit www.rsmas.miami.edu.
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This is just nutz. Coral, like many things – trees, for example, has a happy range of environment within which it content and thriving. Outside that, no. It can’t make it. Other corals will move in and take over. It is nature’s way.
I love that I have several thriving coffee trees here in the Seattle area, but I have to provide certain creature comforts they cannot provide for them selves. Unlike the famous ambulatory asters that move up and down the mountain slopes seeking that perfect environment mankind is hell bent to deprive them, my coffee trees need to come indoors if the nights are too cool, and they winter over in my living room. Even there nature is harsh as I have cats that seem to like the soil in the coffee tree pots and so I have to place slotted sheets of foam core art board over the dirt to keep the cats out. It isn’t easy being green (tm, Kermit).
There’s more to Goldilocks than Porriage !!!!
Doh. This has been obvious to oceanographers in Hawaii for about 70 years. However in the last 10 years we have been invaded by flat landers who have infinite scientific proof that raising temperatures, to that of say, 1930, will devastate all life in the ocean. This idiocy promulgates government and because no one has the clout, financial or political, to call them on it, permeates the literature and lectures. You may literally lose your job and pension by pointing out the falsity.
At last some truth about coral.
Alarmists have claimed for years that corals will die out with rising sea levels and rising temperatures when these are the things that corals love.
One thing about corals is that their spores are ocean wide so a dead area soon recovers.
Friends:
The study finds that cold kills corals.
OK, but corals existed before the last Ice Age. Clearly, they were all killed. Either corals evolved in the last 10,000 years (Oh! Some coral reefs are older than that!) or they adapt to cold.
[sarc on] Living things adapt to environmental change? Surely not. [sarc off]
Warm or cold the corals will survive but their types and abundances will vary. No rational person can doubt this.
Richard
I am a bit confused. We all ” know ” AGW causes it to get warmer, colder, wetter, drier, snowier, less snow, more ice, less ice, black and white, up and down, right and left. So why are people surprised that AGW induced cooling is killing the coral?
Flat landers do not realize how big the ocean really is……
…..and that most of what they call “corals” are weeds
I’m not saying this in the context of global warming; it’s simply my experience here in florida.
I have had a hibiscus for a few years now and it got to a height of about 6ft. Until the winter of 2008/2009 it got very cold here and killed the bush. Grew back in the spring only to die back again in the winter — again very cold. And again it died last winter. Now it’s about 18-24″ and just started flowering, but I expect it to die again this winter if it gets so cold.
We use to have very mild winters here and that’s why my hibiscus could grow through the winter (or at least not wither away) and attained good height, but now since it dies every winter it’s only able to grow to about 2 feet and then is killed by the cold winter.