In the summer of 2010-2011, Western Australia experienced an unprecedented marine heat wave that elevated water temperatures two to four degrees Celsius above average for more than two months. Researchers from the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) in collaboration with scientists from Australia, Spain, Malaysia, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became alert to major carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from the loss of seagrass meadows at Shark Bay—an internationally recognized World Heritage Area and one of the largest remaining seagrass ecosystems on Earth.