The National Institute of Oceanography is located on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Haifa, near Tel Shekmona. Named after Yohai Ben Nun, its founder, it is dedicated to research and development in marine sciences and provides information and professional advice to the government and public sector in the context of the sustainable utilization and preservation of marine and coastal resources. From Israel.
Last Thursday, the institute held the first conference on the impact of climate change on Israel's seas. The event was organized by Professor Gil Rilov and brought together leading marine scientists who presented research, pointing out the alarming panorama of the waters in Israel.
The increase in water temperatures weakens coral reefs and also increases the presence of invasive urchins that destroy the algae that serve as food for fish.
The problem is global. During the conference, Professor Maoz Fine, from the Interuniversity Institute of Marine Sciences in Eilat and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, highlighted that in the last 30 years, the world has lost approximately half of its coral reefs.
In this sense, the Israeli region has some advantages: the reefs in the Gulf of Aqaba off the coast of Eilat are believed to have been kept stable by an adaptive advantage called thermal selection that originated in post-Ice Age migration.
But global warming is not the only threat to reefs. For example, in Eilat, the Europe Asia Pipeline Company's oil port is located just 650 meters from a major coral reef, aggravating the risk to these ecosystems.