The islands, the Maldives, are affected by dirty chemical bleaching of its coral reefs. It creates the worst environmental situation since the 1998 that destroyed many islands shallow underwater coral reef.
Global warming is literally present everywhere. It also affects the algae present in seawater. This algae is dependent on the coral reef of the ocean. The rise in the temperature of the ocean further kills the algae as it causes stress, which is uncalled for. This results in the algae not able to survive in this condition and they leave which causes the coral bleaching or slow death of the coral.
From the Marine Research Center, Marine biologist Hussein Zahir has reported on the abnormalities observed in shallow reef coral in Maldives. According to him around 10 to 15 percent of them got whitened and remaining 50 to 70 percent has already started becoming faded as well.
Guy Stevens, a marine biologist reporting from the Four Seasons Resort in Landaa Giraavaru, notes that he also saw the bleached shallow coral reefs last year. He attributes the continued bleaching to residual effects of El Nino, as the coral reefs in the Maldives continue to try to recover from that event. Stevens says that the situation has a dire effect on the Indian Ocean, since the coral reefs are the basis of the entire reef ecosystem. He has been documenting the almost total destruction of the shallow coral reefs around the Maldives, which he says are close to 95 percent dead as a result of El Nino.
The contrasting conditions of the coral reefs in Thailand does not seem to be considered by Stevens in his explanation of the Maldives reef destruction. Thai marine biologists are reporting that their coral reef is dying at a nearly 100 percent level, yet they claim not to have been affected by the El Nino of 1998.
If the continued destruction of the coral reefs in the Maldives is due to after shocks of El Nino, why are the coral reefs off of Thailand also being killed when they had no part in the El Nino wide spread killing of algae?