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https://theconversation.com/climate-change-killed-40-million-australian-mangroves-in-2015-heres-why-theyll-probably-never-grow-back-166971>
"In the summer of 2015-2016, some 40 million mangroves shrivelled up and died
across the wild Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia, after extremely dry
weather from a severe El Niño event saw coastal water plunge 40 centimetres.
The low water level lasted about six months, and the mangroves died of thirst.
Seven years later, they have yet to recover. My new research, shortly to be
published in
PLOS Climate, is the first to realise the full scale of this
catastrophe, and understand why it occurred.
This event, I discovered, is the world’s worst incidence of climate-related
mangrove tree deaths in recorded history. Over 76 square kilometres of
mangroves were killed, releasing nearly one million tonnes of carbon into the
atmosphere.
But this event, while unprecedented in scale, is not unique. My research also
discovered evidence of another mass die-back of mangroves in the region in 1982
– the same year the Great Barrier Reef suffered its first mass bleaching event.
The mangroves took 15 years to recover. This time, we won’t be so lucky."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
