Hurricanes Could Ruin Our Reef Breaks, And It May Get Worse

“You literally could see how the presence of reefs helped to reduce the wave action and cause less damage and less disturbance,” Dr. Brosnan says, “in areas where the reefs were gone or where you'd had mining of reefs, the waves came in much further.” A subsequent study confirmed what she had observed - the reefs were vital for protecting the shorelines, even in the case of a tsunami. In fact, it has been found that living, healthy coral reefs can reduce the strength of a wave by up to 95% before it hits shore. 

The way Dr. Brosnan describes a reef, it sounds similar to how we might imagine an apartment block. A reef’s architecture provides homes for a variety of species depending on the way they like to live. As Dr. Brosnan explains:

“We know that some fish like to live in the basement, others like to live in the penthouse.” What’s alarming is that as our oceans warm up, coral bleaching events are becoming more common, which destroy the coral and make the entire ecosystem, including the reef's architecture, more fragile. Then, when a supercharged storm hits, this once robust defense system is already weakened and vulnerable. More coral is ripped off and doesn’t have time to repair properly before the next hurricane builds on the horizon. Add a rising sea level to this cocktail of destruction and we can see that our reefs have an insurmountable hill to climb to survive. 

“In some cases hurricanes are getting more intense and the reason they're getting more intense  so fast is because ocean temperatures are the hottest they've ever been.” Dr. Brosnan says.  “The hotter the ocean, the faster the strength of a hurricane accelerates. With [Hurricane] Helene and Milton, it took 24 to 48 hours for it to go to a category four or five, which was just unprecedented. So we're getting bigger waves.”

“The ocean is so hot that corals are dying. We're in the fourth mass bleaching. When a coral is dead the integrity of that reef structure goes away. So, it's no longer acting as a living structure for habitat for growth. It starts to disintegrate. So sea level rise and storms continue and the corals are going down and down. Then this next hurricane that comes in will smash up that reef and you'll just get flat dead reef.”

This means that what once might have been a site for swell lines to pitch and barrel across a garden of coral, starts to cower in front of the waves. If we don’t act, this will only get worse and some of our favorite reef breaks may become soft and fat or disappear altogether. This has already occurred in some places. 

Dr. Brosnan is now working on a project in the Caribbean using nature based solutions to create new reefs that mimic the form of their naturally occurring counterparts. She says that surfers can be part of the solution.

“Surfers are our eyes and ears for the reefs” Dr. Brosnan explains, “they know what makes a good reef break, they're looking at reefs and corals every day. They know if you have sand on this side of a reef, it's a great surf break. And it's probably also very good for shoreline protection. Surfers can get involved by sharing this knowledge.” 

Dr. Brosnan wants surfers to get in touch if they’ve observed changes in the reef at their local break. Send an email to Dr Brosnan info@deborahbrosnan.com to share information on your local.