New “Seaview” survey studies coral reefs and risks from climate change

The general public can now have a virtual view of the Great Barrier Reef, as part of a climate change research project sponsored by specialty insurer and reinsurer Catlin Group Ltd.

The Catlin Seaview Survey launched earlier this month off the Australian coast. The entire survey will include a series of undersea expeditions to study coral reefs around the world, in Bermuda, Hawaii and the Philippines in 2013.

The project will look at how climate change is affecting coral reefs, which are important risk indicators for environmental changes across the globe.“We believe that the more we understand about what is happening to the world in which we live, the better we can decide how to insure the risks we will face in the future,” Stephen Catlin, the group’s chief executive explained in a statement.

As part of the survey, images from the Great Barrier Reef can be seen through Google Street View, as part of Catlin’s partnership with the Internet giant.

The survey will collect up to 50,000 high-resolution, panoramic images, using a tablet-operated underwater camera, Catlin said. Users can then choose a location and take a “virtual dive” along the reef through Google Maps (maps.google.com/ocean).

Nearly 25% of marine species live in and around coral reefs, according to Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the survey’s chief scientist and director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. All of the scientific data from the survey will be made public through a Global Reef Record database, he added.

Between 2009 and 2011, Catlin also sponsored a project studying climate change implications in the Arctic.

Images and video from the Seaview expedition, including “virtual dives,” are also available at CatlinSeaviewSurvey.com.