Aircraft spies on health of coral reefs

Over the past several decades, the world’s coral reefs have been succumbing in record numbers to such stresses as climate warming, pollution, and bashings from ships and their gear. Scientists have monitored the toll by diving to a few sites on each reef and surveying presumably representative areas of health and damage.

Shallow, coral-studded lagoon at Rangiroa Atoll in French Polynesia, as seen from a plane (left).