Water Temperatures On Florida Coast A Hot Tub, Is It A Record? Doesn't Matter, Precious Coral Dying

Fish swim past bleached and dying coral off the 
coast of Florida in this image from Coral Morphalogic,

 It was a record high ocean temperature, then it wasn't. 

You probably heard the wide-spread reports that the water temperature in Manatee Bay, Florida reached 101.1 degrees. That's a pretty standard temperature for a hot tub.  

Turns out, as serious as the hot water is, it might not be a record. 

Mike Lowry, a hurricane and storm surge expert in Florida, said he found evidence that this is not a new record after all. He tweeted: "Amazingly, the water temperature at Manatee Bay FL on Monday, while historically high, may not be a record for the station. Back in August, 2017, it hit 102 F according to Everglades National Park South Florida Natural Resources Center (SDNRC) that maintains the sensor network."

Also, the water in Manatee Bay gets hot quickly because there's a lot of dark sediment floating around in it. That attracts the sun's heat, making it get toasty quickly. 

All this is not to dismiss the importance of that 101.1 degree water temperature in Manatee Bay, and the record hot water all around Florida. I'm for precision, but I'm sure not going to gaslight, or sugar coat what's going on. 

El Nino, which tends to raise ocean temperatures, and climate change have conspired to cause all kinds of problems around the world. Including creating some dangerously high water temperatures around Florida.  

CORAL CRISIS

The most serious issue with this hot tub water is the fate of the coral reefs around Florida. Hot water can have dire consequences for those coral reefs.  That's a potential tragic loss for Florida, and to some extent, the nation as a whole.   

Per the Washington Post:

"Already, scientists have reported widespread coral bleaching along parts of the roughly 360-mile long reef, the third larges on the planet. If the heat drafts on, they say, a massive coral die-off could follow, with grave consequences for fish and other ocean organisms that depend on the reefs, tourism, commercial fishing and part of the state's very identity."

The coral reefs also dissipate up to 97 percent of the energy in waves generated by storms and hurricanes. This minimizes damage from such storms along the coast. Lose the coral, lose the coastline in a future hurricane.

Coral bleaching does not mean dead coral.  But it's a big step in that direction.  WaPo again:

"The corals have endured past incidents of bleaching, a process in which stressed corals expel their symbiotic algae, known as zooxanthellae, and turn pale or white. The frequency and severity of such events has increased since the 1980s, and one of the last significant bleaching events off the Florida Keys took place in 2014."

Scientists are especially worried because these really hot ocean temperatures hit pretty early in the summer. Past coral bleaching events started in mid-August, not mid-July like this year.  

The longer bleaching persists, the more coral will die. 

"If it remains this hot for the next six weeks, we are going to see a lot more coral mortality out there,' said Cynthia Lewis, director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography Keys Marine Laboratory."

Coral does best when the water temperature is between 73 and 84 degrees, so it's got a long way to go before it can cool off.   The water temperature in most of the coral reef area near Florida is between 90 and 98 degrees.

We  probably have to get into September before water temperatures near Florida noticeably start to cool.

Once the coral is dead, there's no coming back. Some scientists liken the current situation in Florida to a wildfire tearing through a rare old growth forest. 

The coral extends from north of Miami south and southwestward through the Florida Keys to a point out in the Gulf of Mexico west of Key West.

Scientists, activists and others are actually doing rescue missions for the coral around Florida. As the Miami Herald reports:

"Dozens of scientists working to save Florida's coral reefs are scrambling to save what they can, taking the highly unusual step of removing imperiled specimens and bringing them to the Keys Marine Laboratory operated by the University of South Florida and the Florida Institute of Oceanography, one of several sites in Florida accepting refugee corals amid the marine heat wave ringing the state."

They've accepted about 5,000 corals and are at 100 percent capacity at all the saltwater aquariums the institute has. That's a tiny percentage of the corals out there. 

Some spots have already reported 100 percent coral mortality rates, which is tragic. Miami Herald again: 

"'It is just truly like holy shit. It's more than a wake-up call. What do you do when the house burns down? How do you rebuild without the pieces you need to start all over again,' said Colin Ford, a coral researcher and artist who founded Coral Morphologic."

Even the corals that can survive the high heat of the water probably lost their ability to reproduce this year. They usually reproduce in August or early September, when, if anything, the water will be even hotter. Scientists think that will hinder or cancel any attempts to reproduce.

WATER AND HURRICANES

Here's another issue that makes the hot water around Florida worrying.  Such extremely warm water temperatures is super high octane fuel for hurricanes. 

If a hurricane is approaching the Florida coast this year, and the atmosphere supports the hurricane's structure, I'd have to worry the storm would rapidly strengthen on approach to the coast, catching people off guard.

Hurricane Ian last year sort of did that in and around Fort Myers Beach.

One slim hope for the coral this year is if a fairly weak tropical storm causes cool water upwelling from the lower depths of the water. A strong hurricane would do that, too, but we wouldn't want the destruction that entails. 

Other than that, the only mechanism to cool the hot water around Florida is autumn.