Coral face "unprecedented" changes from climate
Part of the coral reef in the waters of the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Soufrière, Saint Lucia.
Photo: World Resources Institute Staff
In mid-2007, scientists announced the results of an examination of the geological record of coral reefs in the Caribbean, dating back over 3,000 years.
Using core samples from the coral, these scientists found that – for thousands of years – reefs grew rapidly. But, since about 1980, reef-building has faltered.
Richard Aronson: The kinds of changes that we’ve seen over the last several decades are unprecedented on a scale of at least several thousand years.
That’s Rich Aronson of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. He said that reef cover – the percentage of living coral on a reef – has shrunk from covering about 50 % to 10 % of Caribbean reefs since the late 1970s.
Threats to coral come from water pollution – from destructive fishing with dynamite – from carbon-based greenhouse gases, which can acidify the ocean and stunt coral growth and from warmer ocean waters causing coral bleaching.
Richard Aronson: So there are a lot of negative things happening on coral reefs at the same time. The bottom line is that we have to get control over greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of people think this is a hopeless case. It’s not a hopeless case. Now is the time to do it.
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Another recent study found a nearly identical trend in the much broader Indo-Pacific region, which contains 75% of the world’s coral reefs.
Trying to Save the Coral Reefs
Coral Reefs Losing Ground Throughout the Pacific
Our thanks to:
Richard Aronson
Senior Marine Scientist
Dauphin Island Sea Lab
Alabama
President
International Society for Reef Studies
It is pretty hopeless. Try to gey about a few billion people who drive to buy a car that doesnt pollute the atmosphere. Also how do we get rid of all the Co2 out of the air and the oceans quickly enough? We cant fix this problem quickly and we dont have much time either.
I am student majoring in comunications,and I don’t know much about the ecology.I have heard a lot of news about coral.Is coral very important to our human beings?Or the situation of coral reflects the environmental problem?