Sunscreen Protects Human Skin, Kills Coral Reefs

http://www.weather.com/science/environment/news/sunscreen-threatens-coral-reefs

Lathering yourself with sunscreen before a sunny day on the beach is a healthy living must. But, like many other healthy habits, there might be a downside for the environment — that's only going to get worse thanks to climate change.

A chemical in sunscreen, oxybenzone, which helps filter UV rays, is highly concentrated in the waters around highly trafficked reefs in Hawaii and the Caribbean, an international team of researchers found. Oxybenzone not only kills coral, but also causes damage at the DNA level, both in fully grown coral and in the larval stage, hampering further development.

“The use of oxybenzone-containing products needs to be seriously deliberated in islands and areas where coral reef conservation is a critical issue,” lead author Craig Downs of the non-profit scientific organization Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in Virginia said in a press release. “We have lost at least 80 percent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean. Any small effort to reduce oxybenzone pollution could mean that a coral reef survives a long, hot summer, or that a degraded area recovers. Everyone wants to build coral nurseries for reef restoration, but this will achieve little if the factors that originally killed off the reef remain or intensify in the environment.”

The paper's conclusions came from lab testing of coral larvae and the cells of adult corals to increasing concentrations of oxybenzone. Even at relatively low levels, it caused deformation and coral bleaching. This effect, in turn, can make the corals even less resilient to the effects of climate change, researchers said.

This isn't the first time the chemical has been shown to damage corals. A team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration came to the same conclusion in 2013, as increasing sea surface temperatures due to global climate change, as well as ocean acidification, disease and human activity remain a serious threat to global coral reef ecosystems.

“Coral reefs are the world’s most-productive marine ecosystems and support commercial and recreational fisheries and tourism,” University of Central Florida professor John Fauth, an author of the new paper, said in a press release. “In addition, reefs protect coastlines from storm surge. Worldwide, the total value of coral reefs is tremendous. And they are in danger.”

The paper was published online in the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology on Oct. 20.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Stunning Photos of the World's At-Risk Reefs

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This photo shows a before and after of the bleaching in the waters surrounding American Samoa. The first photo was taken in December 2014 and the second was taken in February 2015.