Here's another way to look at how the oceans have been changing: https://www.reef.org/database-reports

 

This database has been growing for 30+ years and is approaching 300,000 surveys.

 

REEF has been responsible for this humongous (technical term) use of volunteer citizen scientists. It's probable that a lot of those here have contributed. If you haven't yet, please do! Go to the REEF.org site and find out how to sign up.

 

Tom

 

I have recently been in Roatan, Honduras, taking hundreds of photos of the reef and the current condition of many dive sites. It was depressing. Talking to the local dive masters, guides and instructors working here for years, some for decades, they said the reef is 70% dead compared to 6 or 7 years ago. I could find some isolated alive corals but not healthy at all, and the most of them are showing up massive bleaching. The water temperature was 29°C in April 2024, and increasing in summer. The problem is bigger than we think and it's worldwide. 

I've worked a bit more on my documentation of the sea off Oslo, Norway. Here is the development of a bank of blue mussles in Drøbak. At photo 1 you can see too many common starfish eating the shells. The absence of largert cod (probably due to overfishing) has removed their main predator and photo 2 & 3 show the area in 2022 & 2025. All shells in photo 2025 are empty (eaten by starfish (Asterias rubens))

Edited October 7Oct 7 by Rune Edvin Haldorsen

In 2011(untill 2016) we had a wall filled with anemones (Metridium senile). During periods of cold and dry weather, we observe an increase in anemones ( photo 2022) . However, they disappear again after the next period of wet weather. Photos - Same spot March 2011, March 2022 & March 2025

Here Is the same spot (photo 2 is 3 m. south of photo 1) in 2011 and 2025. All vegetation and.fauna is gone. Both photos are shot in the beginning of march.

Avcter the last sad stories, I'll bring some good. This spring / summer has been extraordinary dry with very little floods and little mud, clay and pollution coming into our local fjord. As soon as the conditions are getting better, the marine life is starting to restore, wich means it is hope for the ocean if we just treat it a bit better. Her we see sea squirt (the oceans own cleaning station) covering large aras, sugar kelp growig on previous bare areas, anemones coming back on hte rock and my buddy locking trough an old car wreck with lots of life. The sad part is that it always dissapear after periods with bad conditions.

Filamentous algaes as an indicator of poor environmental status - If the density of think, threadlike algaes cover more than 25 % of rocks, kelp, bladderwrack or eel-grass, we say theu make a problem. More nutrient water with lower Ph (due to CO2), higher temperature, lower saltinity (more rain and more fresh water along the coastline) make the conditions better. 15 years ago the areas in the photos were quite clean from these algaes and filled with kelp and bladderwrack. The same growth is coming along the whole nothern european coastline up to Lofoten. This is from the southern and south-western parts of Norway where the situation is worse than in the North.

Edited Monday at 08:08 AM1 day by Rune Edvin Haldorsen
Adding information

16 hours ago, Rune Edvin Haldorsen said:

Filamentous algaes as an indicator of poor environmental status - If the density of think, threadlike algaes cover more than 25 % of rocks, kelp, bladderwrack or eel-grass, we say theu make a problem. More nutrient water with lower Ph (due to CO2), higher temperature, lower saltinity (more rain and more fresh water along the coastline) make the conditions better.

Thanks Rune - really striking pictures - the filamentous algae situation is dreadful in some areas of Okinawa main island as well.
I've been diving on the Pacific coast a bit, and with constantly high water temperatures (29°C+), growth was really fast, and a lot of healthy hard coral colonies were quickly covered in algae, and there was a lot of silting as well which probably comes from industrial activity (dredging etc, and the Sesoko US military base expansion a little further north)
Last week or so water temperatures are dropping (down to 27° now) and will continue to do so, so we will see how that evolves...

Edited yesterday at 01:07 AM1 day by bghazzal

Yes, mucilage is one of the big problems here in the Mediterranean. Now it's like this almost everywhere in the summer, and nature recovers in the winter with increasing difficulty.

I have several videos that document the changes and now I'm just forced to remember.