Updated at 9:26 p.m., Sunday, March 18, 2007
Coral reefs' plight subject of films tonight at UH
Advertiser Staff
The Oceanography Department at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa is sponsoring a showing of the films "Silent Sentinels" and "Reefs: Rain Forests of the Ocean" from 5 to 7 p.m. today at Spaulding Auditorium on the UH-Manoa campus.Coral reefs are often called the jewels of the sea, but the International Year of the Oceans in 1998 turned out to be the year that coral reefs around the world began to die, event organizers said.
Unprecedented mass bleaching left hundreds of miles of coral coastline severely damaged. It was touted at the time as unequivocal proof that global warming had begun, and that it will have a greater impact than many think.
Tonight's program reveals disturbing evidence that even if coral can survive continually rising temperatures, they won't be able to escape the chemical effects of high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The program examines these claims and takes a broader look at the corals that have coped with climate change over time — one of the most enduring biological relationships in the history of the Earth. The films were made on Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the remote Scott Reef in the Indian Ocean; in the Maldives; the Red Sea; the Pacific Ocean; and the Caribbean.
