Researchers have discovered coral bleaching hundreds of feet underwater, at a depth where corals were once well insulated from surface warming.

When ocean waters grow too warm, corals eject the colorful algae that inhabit their tissues, turning white. If waters cool, algae can regain their color, but stubbornly high temperatures may prove deadly. With climate change, coral bleaching has become routine in shallow reefs, from Australia to the eastern Pacific.

It was long assumed that deeper reefs would remain safe from warming, but in 2019 researchers recorded coral bleaching some 300 feet underwater along the Egmont Atoll in the western Indian Ocean. Amid a hot spell, bleaching affected 80 percent of corals in some areas, scientists reported in Nature Communications.

Read more at: Yale Environment 360

Bleached corals some 300 feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean. (Photo Credit: DIAZ ET AL)

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