Can Coral Reefs Survive?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2016
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over the past eight months almost a quarter of the Great Barrier Reef has died – according to some estimates – because of coral bleaching, which can happen when sea temperatures rise. It's not the first time coral has bleached. It happened once or twice in the early 20th century after periods of warm weather. But, since the 1980s, coral bleaching has been happening regularly. And this year's Great Barrier Reef ‘bleaching event’ is the longest in history. Some say it signals the beginning of the end for coral reefs. There are though, rays of hope. In this Inquiry you'll hear from scientists who are pioneering some extraordinary ways of trying to help coral withstand warmer seas. They're hoping they're not already too late.
Presenter: Helena Merriman
(Photo: Australia's Great Barrier Reef, climate change is posing the most serious threat to the extensive coral reef ecosystem. Credit: Getty images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the inquiry with me, Helena Merriman. |
| 0:03.7 | There's a video that went round a few weeks ago. |
| 0:06.4 | It was on science website, social media. |
| 0:09.5 | And once you've seen it, it's hard to forget. Imagine a large green blob. A blob with little tentacles all |
| 0:21.1 | over it and it's sitting on the bottom of a tank of water. |
| 0:25.0 | Well that green blob is actually a piece of coral and the video shows what happens |
| 0:32.0 | when scientists turn up the heat in the water. |
| 0:35.0 | As the water gets warmer, the coral starts to convulse violently with sudden spasms |
| 0:42.0 | and it belches out clouds of algae. |
| 0:50.0 | With every pouch the coral loses some of its color going from dark green to mid green to pale green and then finally to white |
| 1:00.8 | Apparently dead |
| 1:06.8 | It's called coral bleaching and that was the first time it's ever been caught on film. What makes that video shocking is that this is what's happening to coral reefs all over the world right now. |
| 1:17.0 | The Great Barrier Reef has just gone through the longest bleaching event in history, |
| 1:22.0 | and some scientists say that a quarter of it is now |
| 1:25.2 | dead. The culprit? Rising sea temperatures that are killing off other reefs too. There are predictions that by 2050 there could be no |
| 1:35.6 | sustainable coral reefs left, which would be catastrophic for fish as well as us. Millions depend |
| 1:42.3 | on reefs for food and income and so the battle is now on to try |
| 1:46.3 | to save them. |
| 1:50.1 | In this inquiry you'll hear from scientists on the front line, |
| 1:53.6 | who are hoping that their research might just give coral a chance. |
| 1:59.2 | So our question this week, Can coral reefs survive? |
| 2:06.5 | Part 1, rainforests of the sea. A lot of divers when they're in their water try to swim around and see everything. |
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