Coral model predicts bleaching
Coral bleaching can devastate reefs and the animals that rely on them. The new model takes into account coral porosity, shape, size, water flow and heat transfer to predict where bleaching will occur. Image: RainervonBrandis/iStockphoto Curtin University researchers have used computational fluid dynamics and powerful supercomputers to create new models for understanding and predicting coral bleaching.A phenomenon that has increased in magnitude over the past two decades, coral bleaching is attributed to an elevation of sea surface temperatures combined with the sun’s irradiation.While bleaching is generally expected in response to a one to two degree temperature increase over a prolonged period, the new models consider phenomena such as coral porosity and permeability, morphology, mass and most importantly water flow and heat transfer.Dr Ben Mullins of Curtin’s Fluid Dynamics Research Group said due to their shape and surface area, some corals are likely to be more susceptible to bleaching.“One of the elements ignored...