Hey ocean lovers! 🌊🐠 Get ready for some exciting news about our underwater friends. A research team led by the University of Queensland (UQ) just used high-resolution satellite mapping to discover that there's more shallow coral reef area out there than we thought!
Published in the Cell Reports Sustainability journal this Tuesday, the study reveals that global estimates of shallow coral reefs have been bumped up to a whopping 348,361 square kilometers. That's like finding an underwater city! And within that, they've identified 80,213 square kilometers of rich coral habitat.
How did they do it? By analyzing more than 1.5 million samples and sifting through a mind-blowing 100 trillion pixels of data from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites. 🛰️🔍 Talk about high-def! This cutting-edge tech allowed them to capture super detailed images for a high-resolution global map of our coral reefs.
Why does this matter? Well, coral reefs are like the rainforests of the sea—home to countless marine species and crucial for healthy oceans. Knowing exactly where they are helps us protect them better. So, next time you're dreaming of snorkeling in crystal-clear waters, remember there's more reef out there than we realized! 🏖️🐟
Reference(s):
Satellites reveal fine-scale global area estimates for coral reefs
cgtn.com
