As new research is unveiled, we find how much destruction the climate change could bring. Those variations could quickly destroy almost all coral reef environments worldwide by 2100. The gloomy possibility predicts that increasing seas and warming oceans could bring a disastrous consequence on ocean ecosystems.
It could also indicate that current attempts to revive fading corals will mostly face challenges. Such a thing occur due to the global warming way of destroying environments that could initially sustain healthy reef systems.
Coral Reefs’ Hard Time With the Climate Change
A team of researchers from the University of Hawaii, led by Renee Setter, a biogeographer, made official the latest statements about the coral reefs’ status. She showed her discoveries and analyses at the Ocean Science Meeting 2020. Setter and her team succeeded in modeling ocean environments in which coral reefs are now.
They did that with the help of some projections of sea ground temperature, wave energy, ocean acidification, fishing practices, and pollution. What they found was genuinely intriguing yet helpful. Their results indicate that by 2100 there will mostly be few to zero habitable environments for corals.
“Trying to clean up the beaches is great, and trying to combat pollution is fantastic. But at the end of the day, fighting climate change is really what we need to be advocating for in order to protect corals and avoid compounded stressors,” explained Setter.
Coral Reefs Might Disappear by 2100
Besides the driving tourism and increasing local industries, coral reefs are a whole part of ocean ecosystems, sustaining hundreds of marine creatures. Back in 2017, when a Deloitte Access Economics report was released, the Great Barrier Reef, a designated World Heritage Site, was estimated at $56 million.
Between 2014 and 2017, almost 75 % of the world’s tropical coral reefs encountered warm conditions that were difficult enough to cause bleaching issues. Such a thing happens as a result of abnormal environmental events, such as warmer-than-usual or cooler ocean temperatures. When accentuated, corals discharge little photosynthetic algae that exist in their tissues, generating these vibrant invertebrates to become entirely white.
