Jenny Staletovich, writes in the Miami Herald, about the findings in a recently published study in the journal Biogeosciences The findings bring bad news of a new phenomenon that is threatening the Florida Keys, Maui and the Virgin Islands with even more sea level rise impacts due to the death of their coral reefs. The study found that there is dramatic erosion of the sea floor around these ailing and damaged reefs. The sea floor erosion ranges from a few inches deep all the way to 3 feet of depth since the 1930’s. Due to rising sea levels from thermal expansion and glacier melt, along with the erosion of the sea floor around the reef, impacts to the Florida Keys from hurricane storm surge will become a greater menace sooner then thought.
Staletovich reports:
The study, which focused on the Upper and Lower Keys, the Virgin Islands and Maui, found water now at depths that had not been predicted to occur for another eight decades. That’s because with sea floor loss factored in, sea rise occurred at a far faster rate than previously thought. Other reefs are likely experiencing the same losses, Yates said, meaning many more coastal communities armored by reefs may face higher threats.
“We knew sea rise was happening,” she said. “But the loss of the sea floor makes this worse.”
snipAmong climate scientists, reefs have become a focus of research because they play such a vital role in protecting coasts. Sand they generate keeps shores shallow to absorb waves while the reefs themselves can buffer pounding storm surge from hurricanes. Erosion is a particular concern, with some fearing new impacts could shrink reefs even more.
snipWhere reefs had shrunk, the ocean floor nearby had grown deeper. In the Keys, elevations near Pacific, Elbow, Carysfort and Molasses reefs had dropped dramatically, sometimes over three feet. Nearby habitats like seagrass beds, which need shallow water to survive, were also deeper. Meanwhile sand was piling up down slope in deeper waters to the south toward Molasses Reef, where it does little to help the shoreline, Yates said.
In Biscayne National Park and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, they found losses in nine of 11 different habitats. Water had deepened the most — meaning elevation was lost — on patch and aggregate reefs or rocky bottom dominated by coral. The largest volumes of sand were lost on seagrass beds and other shallow sandy bottoms. The amount of sand lost at the five study sites ranged from 3.4 million cubic meters to 81 million cubic meters — the higher figure enough to fill 81 Empire State buildings, Yates said.
Sea level rise calculations in these areas will need to be adjusted with the sea floor erosion factored in, as it is unknown exactly how deep these former shallow waters will become and the impacts it will deliver to these Florida communities which are just a couple of feet above sea level. Abstract. Coral reefs serve as natural barriers that protect adjacent shorelines from coastal hazards such as storms, waves, and erosion. Projections indicate global degradation of coral reefs due to anthropogenic impacts and climate change will cause a transition to net erosion by mid-century. Here, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the combined effect of all of the processes affecting seafloor accretion and erosion by measuring changes in seafloor elevation and volume for five coral reef ecosystems in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean over the last several decades. Regional-scale mean elevation and volume losses were observed at all five study sites and in 77 % of the 60 individual habitats that we examined across all study sites. Mean seafloor elevation losses for whole coral reef ecosystems in our study ranged from −0.09 to −0.8 m, corresponding to net volume losses ranging from 3.4 × 106 to 80.5 × 106 m3 for all study sites. Erosion of both coral-dominated substrate and non-coral substrate suggests that the current rate of carbonate production is no longer sufficient to support net accretion of coral reefs or adjacent habitats. We show that regional-scale loss of seafloor elevation and volume has accelerated the rate of relative sea level rise in these regions. Current water depths have increased to levels not predicted until near the year 2100, placing these ecosystems and nearby communities at elevated and accelerating risk to coastal hazards. Our results set a new baseline for projecting future impacts to coastal communities resulting from degradation of coral reef systems and associated losses of natural and socioeconomic resources. x xYouTube Video Information on the MarchesParticipate along with millions of people around the world involved in the March for Science and the People’s Climate March to explore how we can protect our world, our health, and our communities.
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