"Crazy haywire" are not words one usually hears from an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), yet that is how Derek Manzello recently described the record-high temperatures threatening to decimate the world's coral reefs. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the coordinator of the NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program said that more than three-fifths of the world's coral reefs (60.5%) had started bleaching due to high ocean temperatures.
Coral reefs "bleach," or expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living with them, when they experience significant stress. This does not kill the coral, although it turns them white (hence the term "bleaching") and usually means the organisms are in poor health.
