This week I watched a Netflix documentary called chasing coral. In this documentary I have learned a few things, such as, coral is an animal with lots of animals called polyps living on the Coral. That coral photosynthesis during the day and at night the polyps come alive and feed on living matter. Coral can also defend itself by producing a sting which can kill prey and also other coral.
This documentary highlights how global warming is killing the coral around the world, when sea temperatures rises it kills the coral turning it white, this is known as coral bleaching.
The first recorded mass coral bleaching occurred in 1998 as sea temperatures spiked, after this event coral was able to recover, however in recent years temperature spikes are occurring hotter and more frequent which prevents the coral from being able to recover, leading to a tremendous loss in marine life.
Throughout the documentary the film makers main challenge was how to show and document the slow process of coral bleaching, one of the solutions they decided on was to create special camera set ups that could capture a time-lapse over several months. However this didn't quite work as unfortunately the cameras went out of focus. They eventually resorted to manually shooting the time-lapse with a team of scuba diving photographers.
The documentary captured a unique phenomenon, some coral started to glow fluorescent, this was one of the corals defence mechanisms against the rising temperatures as a sort of sunscreen.
To help this global problem, the documentary has inspired scuba divers around the world to photograph and record what is happening to the coral in the areas that they live in. Educating as much people to this hidden problem is also necessary to help combat this problem as many people will never see a coral reef they don't know what is happening to it, but they will suffer the consequences if it continues.
Thankfully, many countries are committed to be powered by clean energy which will lower the greenhouse gases produced and lower global sea temperatures.
