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I went to Thailand shortly after the covid lockdowns ended, and the corals were all coming back. I talked to a boat captain about it and his comment was: “yeah,

I went to Thailand shortly after the covid lockdowns ended, and the corals were all coming back. I talked to a boat captain about it and his comment was: “yeah, there were no tourists to abuse them”. I can’t help but wonder what effect tourism (and lockdowns) has had on corals. For example, It is common among scuba divers to only use mineral sunscreens because standard off-the-shelf sunscreen floats on the top of the water and blocks UV from the corals

nradov 2y ago
It appears that oxybenzone and octinoxate sunscreens may be directly toxic to corals. Blocking UV light doesn't seem to be the issue. https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/coral-reefs/truth-about-corals-and-sunscreen https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/coral-reefs/truth-about-cora...
mike_hearn 2y ago
It's possible that this sort of thing is connected, yes. The timing of a rebound in 2020 is interesting. But then again, if it's caused by tourism or sunscreen, the next interesting question is what changed around 2010?