Warmer Waters: Good for Bathing, Not for Fish

Recently I was watching a very interesting nature documentary on Netflix called Our Planet which shows absolutely stunning footage of natures true beauty while a narrator informs the audience about the life that is being shown. If you have not seen it I highly recommend it. Anyway, as I was watching the show one major theme seems to pop up all the time and that is global warming/ climate change. This seems to be man's largest global crisis right now and it is greatly affecting our planet. In this blog I would like to inform everyone about a part of climate change that many people know or talk about and that is our oceans. Along with many places around the Earth, our ocean's are becoming warmer. This is affecting the life that live in those waters more than most know.

One of the biggest problems facing our ocean's ecosystems is coral bleaching. While only taking up 1% of the sea floor, about 25% of marine species live in coral reefs. Healthy and productive coral reefs are on of the most important ecosystems on the planet. When the ocean's temperatures get too warm, the coral start to get rid of the plants that live within them that help them get food and in turn, they turn white. This is referred to as coral bleaching. Over 1000 km of Great Barrier reef bleached in 2017 and many of those coral died like in the image above. Without coral reefs many of our ocean's species will die.

If you want to see more about the state of our coral reefs and all of our planet's ecosystems go to ourplanet.com. Our Planet is not only a documentary on Netflix informing us of the effects of global warming on Earth but is also an organization run by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to try and educate the world on how we can fix global warming.