Global Warming and Coral Reefs

Global warming is often discussed in somewhat vague terms. To see an impact occurring now, one needs look no farther than the relationship between global warming and coral reefs.

Coral reefs are some of the most beautiful natural occurrences you will ever see. The explosion of life, color and odd shapes is simply amazing. Unfortunately, they system is also very susceptible to temperature changes. This is due to the fact that a coral bed is built by living coral. When changes occur that create an environment outside the range the coral can live in, they die and the system fails as well.

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The single easiest issue to understand is that of temperature change. The ocean maintains a fairly standard temperature in reef areas. The oceans, however, are also warming. When they warm as little as 2 degrees, the coral cannot adapt. It becomes strained and dies or is attacked by disease and dies. We know this because 1998 was a year when oceans warmed dramatically in areas of coral growth and the die off was tremendously quick. The end result was what is now called bleached coral - a coral bed with no color, just dead white "statutes" of coral.

Ocean acidification is another concern when it comes to the future of coral reefs. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, one of which is carbon dioxide. The planet has a way of regulating this. It sucks up the carbon dioxide via plants, particularly large forest areas and through the ocean. Alas, we've cut down the majority of forests in the world which leaves the oceans to do the heavy duty work. This, however, is leading to an acidification problem.

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Any gardener knows about PH levels. Plants will only grow in a certain PH range, which is a measurement of how acidic the ground is. Well, the same is true for plants in the ocean such as coral. As the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it converts the gas to carbon acid. This acid lowers the PH level and makes any production of calcium carbonate difficult or impossible. Coral does just this. The current PH level of the ocean is roughly 8.14. A drop to 7.85 or so would be the end of coral reefs as we know them.

The relationship between global warming and coral reefs is one we can see very clearly. Just take a look at the white, dead reefs around the world and you know there are problems in the oceans.

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