MONGABAY (14/2/2022)
Dozens of tiny, dazzlingly colorful fish swim around a maze of layer upon layer of corals. When divers approach, they hide near a dome-shaped colony.
In the clear, warm waters of Aqaba, clownfish, butterflyfish and angelfish swim next to a military tank deliberately sunk in the 1990s, now one of several wrecks that have become popular diving sites. Over the years, the tank turned into a habitat for various marine species as corals started growing on it.
With the pressures of climate change, coral reefs are bleaching and dying globally at an unprecedented rate. In the last 50 years, more than half of the world’s coral reef cover has been lost. Marine heat waves are devastating corals in the Mediterranean Sea. Experts predict that global warming and acidifying oceans could wipe out up to 90% of corals in the coming decades.
But in Jordan, researchers are more hopeful as corals show no signs of mass bleaching.
“Corals in the Gulf of Aqaba can withstand higher temperatures,” says Jordanian conservationist Ehab Eid. “When most of the world’s corals are gone because of rising water temperatures, the corals in Aqaba might be the last remaining reefs.”
While mass bleaching and death occur when corals are exposed to temperatures that are 1-2° Celsius (1.8-3.6° Fahrenheit) above their normal summer maximum, scientists found that the reefs in the Gulf of Aqaba, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, can survive a rise of 5-6°C (9-10.8°F)
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