The Effects of Coral Bleaching in Southern Tropical America: Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela

Abstract

The most extreme coral bleaching and mortality event to hit the Wider Caribbean (including Atlantic) coral reefs occurred in 2005. This was during the warmest year ever recorded, eclipsing the 9 warmest years that had occurred since 1995. The previous warmest year was 1998, which resulted in massive coral bleaching throughout many parts of the world and effectively destroyed 16% of the world's coral reefs, especially in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. Unlike the events of 1998, this climate-related bleaching event did not occur in an information vacuum; this time there were many scientific tools available and alerts issued to those working and managing coral reefs in the Caribbean to assess the damage and possibly prepare management responses to reduce the damage. This book explains coral bleaching and follows the sequence of the events leading up to it, and documents much of the damage that occurred to the coral reefs and consequently to the people dependent on coral reefs for their livelihoods in the Wider Caribbean.