Global warming killing coral reefs, right? Wrong, Australian study finds
Mon Dec 13, 2:11 AM ET Asia - AFP
SYDNEY (AFP) - Coral reefs around the world could expand in size by up to a
third because of increased ocean warming, according to a new Australian study
which contradicts the long-held belief that global warming is destroying the
reefs.
Previous research has predicted a decline of between 20 and 60 percent in the
size of coral reefs by 2100 relative to pre-industrial levels because of
increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels caused by the greenhouse effect in ocean
surface waters.
But the newly published research, by a team led by oceanographer Ben McNeil of
Sydney's University of New South Wales, suggests that present coral reef
calcification rates are not in decline and are equivalent to late 19th century
levels.
"Our analysis suggests that ocean warming will foster considerably faster
future rates of coral reef growth that will eventually exceed pre-industrial
rates by as much as 35 percent by 2100," McNeil said in a statement Monday.
"Our finding stands in stark contrast to previous predictions that coral reef
growth will suffer large, potentially catastrophic, decreases in the future."
The research has been published in the latest edition of the journal
Geophysical Research Letters by McNeil and colleagues Richard Matear of the
government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
(CSIRO) and David Barnes of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, at
Townsville in north-eastern Australia.
Experts say seawater surface temperatures and the quantity of carbonate in
seawater dictate the growth rate of coral reefs which are built from calcium
carbonate when red algae cement together a framework of coral skeletons and
sediments.
The Australian scientists have observed the calcification-temperature
relationship at significant reef-building colonies around the world in the
Indo-Pacific and at massive Porites reef colonies in Australia, Hawaii,
Thailand, the Persian Gulf and the South Pacific island of New Ireland.
They say the predicted increase in the rate of coral reef calcification is most
likely due to an enhancement in coral metabolism and/or increases in
photosynthetic rates of red algae.
They used projections of ocean warming and CO2 concentration from a CSIRO
climate model that accounts for atmosphere-ice and ocean carbon cycles.
A report released earlier this year by scientists at Queensland University
found that the brightly-coloured corals that make up the world-renowned Great
Barrier Reef, one of the world's natural wonders, would be largely dead by 2050
because of rising sea temperatures.
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| User: "Krib" |
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| Title: Re: Global warming is NOT killing coral reefs |
14 Dec 2004 10:11:23 AM |
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"TonyZ2001" <tonyz2001@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20041214094944.07586.00002194@mb-m01.aol.com...
Hey fuckhead, why are you hiding from all the questions
you've been asked about your lies again? You're as yellow
as guernon, filthy racist coward.
--
krib
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