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Coral reefs are retreating from equatorial waters and establishing new reefs in more temperate regions, according to new research in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. The researchers found that the number of young corals on tropical reefs has declined by 85 percent – and doubled on subtropical reefs – during the last four decades.
"Climate change seems to be redistributing coral reefs, the same way it is shifting many other marine species," said Nichole Price, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and lead author of the paper. "The clarity in this trend is stunning, but we don’t yet know whether the new reefs can support the incredible diversity of tropical systems."
As climate change warms the ocean, subtropical environments are becoming more favorable for corals than the equatorial waters where they traditionally thrived. This is allowing drifting coral larvae to settle and grow in new regions. These subtropical reefs could provide refuge for other species challenged by climate change and new opportunities to protect these fledgling ecosystems.
Read more at: Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
An experiment in Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge collects coral larvae, allowing researchers to enumerate the number of baby corals settling on a reef. Recent research shows that corals are establishing new reefs in temperate regions as they retreat from increasingly warmer waters at the equator.
The most extensive and systematic insect monitoring program ever undertaken in North America shows that butterfly abundance in Ohio declined yearly by 2%, resulting in an overall 33% drop for the 21 years of the program.
Though the study was limited to one group of the insect class and one geographic area, the findings provide an important baseline for what’s happening more broadly with insect populations amid climate change and other human-caused disturbances, the study’s corresponding author said. The findings also are in line with those of butterfly monitoring programs in multiple European countries.
“These declines in abundance are happening in common species,” said Oregon State University researcher Tyson Wepprich, who led the study. “Declines in common species concern me because it shows that there are widespread environmental causes for the declines affecting species we thought were well adapted to share a landscape with humans. Common species are also the ones that contribute the bulk of the pollination or bird food to the ecosystem, so their slow, consistent decline is likely having ripple effects beyond butterfly numbers.”
Canada has been battling a very active and destructive fire season on multiple fronts this year. A warming climate, very dry environment, and more extreme weather including severe thunderstorms has led to massive wildfires throughout the country.
Two of the provinces hardest hit by these fires are Ontario and Manitoba. On July 7, 2019, the Suomi NPP satellite using its VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument captured this image of the fires ongoing in the region. Also visible in this image is the massive amount of smoke pouring off these fires and moving southeast into other parts of Ontario, over the Great Lakes, and into Michigan. Small amounts are also seen drifting into Minnesota.
The smoke will continue to drift southward as it's carried on the jet stream. Actively burning areas, detected by VIIRS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Suomi NPP is managed by NASA and NOAA.