Film Title Silent Sentinels

Scientific Field Environmental/Ecology/Natural

Duration


58

Organisation ABC-TV Science Unit

Country Australia

Website www.abc.net.au/science

Producer Richard Smith

Director Richard Smith

Previous Award

Various: Gold Unesco, New York;

Telescience, Ekofilm, Oekomedia

99 etc

 

Synopsis

1998 saw the death of corals on a scale never before witnessed.

From East Africa to the Caribbean, corals began losing their

pigmentation and turning as white as skeletons. The process is

known by its appearance as coral bleaching and, if severe, the

coral dies. Though coral bleaching was first noticed early this

century, the mortality from coral bleaching in 1998 was

unprecedented with many reefs in the Indian Ocean completely

wiped out. Surprisingly, the scale of the event was barely

reported and many people - even scientists - seem only dimly

aware that it happened.



Filmed in three oceans, "Silent Sentinels" is the first extensive

television investigation into one of the greatest biological

disasters of the modern age. It charts the unfolding story of coral

bleaching as scientists have grappled to understand it and offers

strong evidence that the latest event was caused by rising sea

temperatures. It seems clear that this rise can be attributed to

global warming and could threaten the continued existence of

coral reefs as we know them.



That’s not all. The programme reveals the latest disturbing 

evidence that even if corals can survive rising sea temperatures,

they won't be able to escape the chemical effects of high levels

of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Experiments in Arizona's

Biosphere II show that as the ocean is becoming more acidic,

corals will grow more slowly and with weaker skeletons.



There is a dilemma with ascribing events like coral bleaching to

global warming. What we see in tropical waters today is the result

of an epic 400 million year history. How do we pick the natural

range of climatic variability when instrument records go back only

one hundred years? It seems corals themselves may hold the

answer. Some corals can live for a thousand years, holding a

climate record that can be read like the rings in a tree. But in

1998, to add urgency to the task, these corals as well began to

bleach and die.



Just like Goldilocks, corals need the ocean to be not too hot and

not too cold. They like it to be just right. But as "Silent Sentinels"

so graphically shows, the current crisis with coral reefs is not a

fairytale. If it is indeed a nightmare of our own making then we

need to know about it.

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