BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC)— The Barbados-based Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) says it is hoping that coral reefs can receive “to some degree” relief after the past coral bleaching season had been quite hard on the region due to prolonged heat stress within the last few months.
In its latest and final issue of the Caribbean Coral Reef Watch bulletin for 2020, the CIMH’s Regional Climate Centre, noted that some coral reefs in the region suffered during the 2020 bleaching season.
“Widespread bleaching reported in Belize, and some in Barbados. There is now no thermal heat stress throughout most of the Caribbean, with the exception of the Southern Caribbean Sea in the region of the Leeward Antilles. This region is currently under low-level thermal stress at the Watch alert level,” it said.
But it noted that the four-month outlook indicates that coral bleaching heat stress should not affect corals reefs from January through April next year.
“Coral bleaching heat stress levels returned to no stress across most of the region with the exception of the Leeward Antilles where they are at Watch level, but are predicted to return to no stress across the entire Caribbean in five to eight weeks, persisting through April,” the CIMH said in its Outlook for the Caribbean.
