Global Warming May Kill All Coral Reefs Quickly

Global Warming May Kill All Coral Reefs Quickly

January 2008  - Seventeen 
eminent marine scientists warn that world leaders face a race against time 
in preparing coral reefs, and the coastal communities dependent upon them 
for the "inevitable impact" of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the 
Earth's atmosphere. Their new study shows that levels of carbon dioxide 
could become unsustainable for coral reefs within 50 years. 
The warning comes in a new study published in the journal "Science" on 
December 14. 
"It's vital that the public understands that the lack of sustainability in 
the world's carbon emissions is causing the rapid loss of coral reefs, the 
world's most biodiverse marine ecosystem," said Drew Harvell, Cornell 
professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and head of the Coral 
Disease Research Team, which is part of the international Coral Reef 
Targeted Research, CRTR, group that wrote the new study. 
The rise of carbon dioxide emissions and the resulting climate warming 
from the burning of fossil fuels are making oceans warmer and more acidic, 
said Harvell. 
These conditions are causing widespread coral disease and stifling coral 
growth toward what Harvell calls "a tipping point for functional 
collapse." 
The study's senior author, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Center for 
Marine Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia, says coral 
ecosystems provide habitats for a vast array of marine species that are 
essential to the complex food chain in all the oceans of the world. 
Coral reefs provide livelihoods to 100 million people who live along the 
coasts of tropical developing countries. Diving tourism in the Caribbean 
alone is estimated to generate more than $100 billion a year. 
The loss of coral reef ecosystems also is exposing people to flooding, 
coastal erosion and the loss of food and income from reef-based fisheries 
and tourism, warned Hoegh-Guldberg. 

The marine scientists argue that "drastic action" is needed from world 
leaders to turn around the trend in rising levels of atmospheric carbon 
dioxide, CO2, to protect coral reefs. 
They based their conclusions on the forecasts for rising global 
temperatures and levels of CO2 announced earlier this year by the UN 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 
"Coral reefs have already taken a big hit from recent warm temperatures, 
but rapid rises in carbon dioxide cause acidification, which adds a new 
threat: the inability of corals to create calcareous skeletons," said 
Harvell. 
"Acidification actually threatens all marine animals and plants with 
calcareous skeletons, including corals, snails, clams and crabs," he said. 

In the short term, better management of overfishing and local stressors 
may increase resilience of reefs to climate threats, the authors 
acknowledge, but they predict that rising global CO2 emissions will 
outstrip the capacity of local coastal managers and policy-makers to 
maintain the health of these critical ecosystems if the emissions continue 
unchecked. 
Today, coral reefs around the world are in such serious decline that their 
defilement risks contributing to environmental and economic instability of 
many coastal nations, the scientists say. 
Of the 109 countries with significant coral reef communities, over 93 are 
experiencing damage to them, according to CRTR scientists. They warn that 
many coral reefs have reached such a state of decline that they can no 
longer be considered as coral reefs, while others are under increasing 
threat from local human disturbances and impacts from a changing global 
climate. 
The Coral Reef Targeted Research and Capacity Building for Management 
Program has been established to address fundamental information gaps in 
understanding of coral reef ecosystems, so that management options and 
policy interventions can be strengthened globally. 
For the first time, this program will join the collective effort of many 
of the world’s leading coral reef scientists to coordinate research and 
address key outstanding questions about the health of coral reefs. 
The program is being developed in phases over 15 years, and through 
focused and systematic research is working to support management and 
policy and to better integrate results with other disciplines, such as 
economics and law. 
It is a partnership of the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank, 
the University of Queensland, Australia, and the U.S. National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration and some 40 research institutes and other third 
parties around the world. 

---