Recent research has shown that high temperatures expose coral reefs to the risk of bleaching, explaining that coral reefs in the Arabian Gulf are becoming more vulnerable to bleaching when summer winds are not enough to cool the water surface, according to research published in Frontiers in Marine Science. .
The absence of this kind of wind, known as the "North Winds", could allow the shallow waters of the Gulf to reach temperatures that are considered fatal to coral reefs over the summer, according to the authors of the study, assistant professor of biology at New York University Abu Dhabi John Burt , And assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Francesco Paparella.
The study pointed out that as global warming continues, it is theoretically expected that coral reefs in the Gulf will remain at risk of bleaching in the event of long-term climate changes affecting seasonal Indian Ocean winds, which pave the way for northern winds in this region. White, when turbid or heat pollution, which is expelled in a seaweed living inside the tissues called Zuzantla, which provides the reef color, and is an easy food resource thanks to the process of photosynthesis, which provides the reefs with 90% of its capacity, allowing it to grow and multiply .
Burt and Paparella collected and analyzed data from three major coral colonies located in the waters of Abu Dhabi, south of the Gulf: Saadiyat Island, Ras Ghanaada, and Dabiya. These three sites are deep and far from the shore. The Arabian Gulf, whose mathematical model describes the energy flowing through the water column, was able to reproduce the observed data and revealed that during the summer months, the northern wind could achieve more than 300 watts per square meter of evaporative cooling - Organize Air conditioning.
The study stressed the continued increase in the frequency of coral bleaching in the world and in the Arabian Gulf as the global temperature of the sea rises, which displays coral reefs to temperatures exceeding the thermal threshold gained by the coral during its development stages.