And so fortunately, we've been involved in an effort to expand this and use climate models so that we predict up to four months in advance where bleaching is likely to happen.Now, that's "likely to happen." That's now where it is going to happen, because there are things like hurricanes that come along
And we will be launching that list of 50 reefs later this year. The bleaching that happened in 2014 to 2017 covered an area about the size of the state of Massachusetts.
And I think the point that she is making is that both image and celebrity may be said to be overexposed through flash. This intense bleaching , of course, recalls flash's largest and most deadly form, one that I showed earlier, the flash of the nuclear bomb-- the extreme point reached by flashes that accompany potentially lethal activity.
This was potentially going to be a global bleaching event, that it was building up and looking like that. But global bleaching events have typically occurred at the time of an El Nino and have happened within a sort of 12-month window. And so by the time a year had gone by, you're gone.
So we had these corals in Panama and Costa Rica that some of them had made it through the really warm water and the bleaching event, and then this red tide came in and the toxins were enough that they were killing off some of the corals. So that can-- it's just another piece of that whole puzzle of what the impacts are.
firsthand the environmental issues uh that are plaguing our planet we live in a time when it's really scary things like Coral bleaching and deforestation illegal Timber Harvest antibiotic resistance Wildlife trafficking and poaching harmful algal blooms the list goes on and on shark Finning these are
It's just one of the indicators of a sick ocean, when what we need is a healthy ocean. And The other one is also coral bleaching . I mean, that's been on an exponential increase unfortunately.
And they have four legs and a little lure between their eyes. We just had our first bleaching event where I live.
These corals in this photo are stark white. And this is a process called coral bleaching that's been in the news a lot in the last few years. And what it is, is it's a response of corals to really extreme stress.
In the central photo, they've turned white. That whitening is called coral bleaching . And it's what happens when the relationship between the algae and the coral break down.
It got hit by disease. It got hit by coral bleaching . And what happened is that in 30 years, it went from this thriving ecosystem that was providing all these benefits to the community and all these benefits to the wildlife,
And you will understand the issues with garbage today. We will talk a lot about bleaching reefs to get white. But first, look at the beauty of these organisms.
Yeah. On my end, it was like he just mentioned. We didn't necessarily have bleaching nailed down as the individual thing we were going to look at, but then we began to face what would eventually be one of the largest El Nino's to ever hit.
And we will be launching that list of 50 reefs later this year. And we actually had some warming before bleaching became a problem, and so there is evidence that they were actually keeping up for awhile.
a super-powered El Niño brought drought to nearly every continent and destructive floods in North and South America. And another from 1997 to 1998 caused widespread record rainfalls, mudslides, wildfires, and coral bleaching . So, what can we expect with the strength of the current El Niño continuing to gather over the coming months? The World Meteorological Organization's seasonal outlook is predicting temperatures and rainfall far outside of global averages. And a stronger El Niño means more intense shifts in weather. It makes a parade of storms more likely to happen.
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. And an average coral is the coral that's bleaching .
I'm going to argue that it's got four parts. It's going to get hit by a bleaching event.
We had very little time to equip the boat. And then I see the imagery of all the coral bleaching .
We were under the impression when all of this started that this was going to be like what we had seen previously. This was potentially going to be a global bleaching event, that it was building up and looking like that. But global bleaching events have typically occurred at the time of an El Nino and have happened within a sort of 12-month window.
But if you're in the stands, you know that ball's going back and forth. And that was what was happening with that bleaching event, is the temperature was sloshing back and forth from northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere over a three-year time period.
Via its title, though-- or the title of the series, "Memory"-- it speaks to how difficult it can be to recollect a moment except through a photograph, because that bleaching light stands for time's passage, the fading, obliterating effects of memory that family photography so desperately tries to deny.
I am very curious how that process with the production team went, to unpack all those different narratives and dialogues. And I also understood Jeff wasn't really familiar with the issue of coral bleaching either when you started. Yes. So I mean, I saw his film "Chasing Ice." And that was documenting the glaciers changing due to climate change using time lapse photographers
sets of things we do at NOAA. One is looking at satellites to look at the sea surface temperatures that cause coral bleaching . So we've got maps, and you can look around on CoralReefWatch.NOAA.gov and you can see the maps of where the bleaching is
We certainly weren't expecting it to come back to the northern hemisphere again. In reality, it was a three-year long bleaching event-- so from June of 2014 until May of this year. So right at three years, we had bleaching going on.
In reality, it was a three-year long bleaching event-- so from June of 2014 until May of this year. So right at three years, we had bleaching going on. And I've had Australian collaborators who say, well, but this wasn't a continuous bleaching event.
If I didn't have a supportive, loving family, I could have been trying to hide my color or-- I don't know. Some kids, I've heard, bleaching their skin or tying their hair back or ironing out their hair. And it made me go the other way.
In many cases, what happens is that those corals will then die. And if you see on the picture on the right, these corals have died from this bleaching event. And now, they're fuzzy and sort of ugly colors.
by calling the image "Flash." Or in Maya Dickerhof's image, "Family," from a series which is called "Memory." And this is an image that riffs off amateur mistakes-- getting too close with the flash, bleaching out what it is that you really want to take the photograph of, the family grouping in the middle.
are these huge reefs you can see from space. And so it's the fact that those plants are living inside the animal that leads to coral bleaching . That's the loss of those animals under high-temperature stress, which is exactly what we do at Coral Reef Watch.
they had been going out and using this spectacular technology that Richard was behind putting together, and doing these underwater Street View images. But very quickly, the realization with bleaching being a major problem was, we need to get back out there, and when bleaching is going on, capture that with these cameras. And so I've been advising Richard and the team already on where bleaching was likely to happen.
images. But very quickly, the realization with bleaching being a major problem was, we need to get back out there, and when bleaching is going on, capture that with these cameras. And so I've been advising Richard and the team already on where bleaching was likely to happen. What happens at the time-- it really was a perfect storm.
And so by the time a year had gone by, you're gone. And so the expectation with that first deployment in the northern hemisphere was we had already seen bleaching in the southern hemisphere at that point, the American Samoa and other areas.
And that's the problem with fossil fuels going into the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels producing excess carbon dioxide, raising temperatures-- that's where the bleaching comes from. That's also where the ocean acidification comes from, from the excess CO2.
There are problems with runoff and some of these things that are going on. We just recently, at the same time that all of this bleaching was going on, there was a major dieoff of starfish all along the coast here. So these are different things are all part of these impacts that we as people are having in a broad range of ways.
of the surface. Once in place, these were also glued and braced. "Over the next few weekends, cutting a dowel, bleaching stains, removing old varnish, sanding, applying red oak finish, sanding again, finishing, sanding, finishing, I completed the restoration.
marine wildlife. But we also show films that are how we engage with the ocean, and appreciate it, and have fun with it, from surfing, And I don't mean kind of didactic, beat them over the head about, maybe there's a movie about coral bleaching or something like that, not that.
And what it is, is it's a response of corals to really extreme stress. The stress usually is that the water is too warm for too long, and they go through a process called bleaching . We'll talk a little bit more about this later on.
And we were used to main El Nino events of warming of the Pacific every six, seven years over the last 50 years. And for the last three years, every year, we find we can see bleaching events. Sometimes they recover, and the reef is getting back to its states.
Yes, we have one-- there we go. And the answer is all three, and that's what really makes them unique and important in this story of understanding coral bleaching , because it's an animal with these microscopic algae living inside their tissues, and the combination of the plant and animal are what build the skeletons, which
One is looking at satellites to look at the sea surface temperatures that cause coral bleaching . So we've got maps, and you can look around on CoralReefWatch.NOAA.gov and you can see the maps of where the bleaching is going on or likely to be going on all around the world at any time.
and change all of that. So we were involved in providing that information that was guiding them on where to go, when to go, what locations were most likely to see a lot of bleaching , how severe it was going to be matching that up with information on where it would be photogenic, and figuring out sort of the planning for all of this.
So right at three years, we had bleaching going on. And I've had Australian collaborators who say, well, but this wasn't a continuous bleaching event. I say, look, you're looking at it like an ant on a tennis court.
So that gave the unexpected second chances, because it was coming back again. And the unfortunate thing is at the end of this film, when everything was wrapped and we were premiering at Sundance, there was another bleaching event happening on the Great Barrier Reef just a year after the one that's in the film.
And we will be launching that list of 50 reefs later this year. They don't have the symbiotic algae most of the time, so you don't have the issues with bleaching .
And then finally, as we all have heard from many different angles, but we cannot mention the oceans without describing the situation of climate change and its impact to the oceans. This is a reef in Aceh in Indonesia a year ago prior to, a year and a half ago, prior to the bleaching event that bleached out 100 percent of certain species of corals, in a site where we worked.