Warm Seas Threaten Coral

www.physorg.com:

"Sea temperatures around Puerto Rico and the Florida Keys reached 83.5 degrees Saturday - a high not normally seen until September," said Al Strong, a scientist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch.

'We've got a good two more months of heating,' Strong told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Washington. 'If it were to go up another degree, it would be pretty serious. That's what we had last year.'

Researchers fear another hot summer could be disastrous for coral still recovering from last year, when up to 40 percent of coral died in abnormally warm seas around the U.S. Virgin Islands. "

By the way, one other thing was strongy intensified by last year's warm Gulf temperatures was Hurricane Katrina.