http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0627404120070506

50% bleaching over 10 years, the article's not too clear on the cause being well-defined.

That article doesn't but most of what I've read blames rising water temperatures, too much light and uv radiation, pollution runoff,and acidification.

http://www.reeffutures.org/topics/bleach.cfm

http://www.uvi.edu/coral.reefer/bleach.htm

http://www.marinebiology.org/coralbleaching.htm

http://www.oceansalive.org/explore.cfm?subnav=article&contentID=4709

That article doesn't but most of what I've read blames rising water temperatures, too much light and uv radiation, pollution runoff,and acidification.

http://www.reeffutures.org/topics/bleach.cfm

http://www.uvi.edu/coral.reefer/bleach.htm

http://www.marinebiology.org/coralbleaching.htm

http://www.oceansalive.org/explore.cfm?subnav=article&contentID=4709

Yup, although the Cayman islands are an interesting case. They're fairly near the equator, so they're not likely to be impacted by the ozone hole, and the islands are rather small and have little agriculture or industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayman_islands), so I would expect that local runoff or human-caused acidification wouldn't be a major contributor... so it seems like it's more likely caused by some sort of large-scale problem, either ocean chemistry or temperature or a change in currents or weather patterns... all of which is a bit extra scary. I guess there could be pollution issues from Central America, Cuba, Jamaica or Florida, but there's quite a bit of water between each of those and the Caymans... it looks (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Cayman+Islands&ie=UTF8&ll=19.269665,-79.28833&spn=17.610639,43.461914&z=5&om=1) like they're over 50 miles or so from Cuba, and at least 100 from anywhere else...

Of note, Hurricane Ivan came close to wiping out the human aspect of the island(s) in 2004 which may have had multiple impacts. The underwater destruction of the hurricane itself, of course, but also the waste elimination and rebuilding pollution. We were there last year and heard a lot of interesting survival stories as well as observing the remenants of destruction.

http://www.blueoceanart.com/ivan/

This has nothing to do with coral bleaching, except that the people who started it were motivated by the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. Take a look at this. Awesome!

http://www.theiff.org/reef/index.html

:shock:

Okay, I hadn't read the whole thing. This has a lot to do with coral reefs. Wow! What a project!