Experts Warn of Perishing Coral Reefs
Coral specialists and climate change experts meeting in London predicted a threat of extinction of coral reefs with expected pace of CO2 emissions reaching 450 parts per million by 2050. Alex Rogers representing the Zoological Society of London and the International Program on the State of the Ocean urged quick and decisive action to put out the kitchen fire before it engulfs the house causing irreversible damage.
Coral reefs are aragonite structures created by living beings, detected in marine water systems comprising a few nutrients. In most reefs, the overriding organisms are stony corals, complex coelenterates that release an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate. The collection of skeletal material, broken and accumulated by wave action and bioeroders, produces a calcareous formation that bears out the living corals and a great variety of other animal and plant life.
Coral reefs most generally live in tropical waters, but deep water and cold water systems corals survive on a much smaller scale.
CO2 generated by burning of fossil fuels are absorbed in large amount by oceans which are acidifying increasingly posing a grave danger to the calcification process of sea animals and coral reefs. The forthcoming UN treaty to fight global warming in December at Copenhagen is likely to address the issue of such threats to oceans. Coral reefs which are rocky undersea structures made by tiny coral polyps are not only vital for nurseries, fish and other sea life which sustains on this, but are also a critical food source, tourist attraction, protector of coastlines and potential storehouse for medicines for cancer and other ailments.
John Veron, formerly Chief Scientist with the Australian Institute of Marine Science feels that 450 ppm level of CO2 would be disastrous for world’s reefs and will pose a threat to humanity as 360 ppm is the breaking point for reefs’ survival. Scientists urged world leaders to strive to agree for a level of 320 parts per million of CO2 at Copenhagen to save the oceans from acidifying further. The current level of 387 ppm of CO2 has very severely affected the reefs and are threatening the other marine and coastal ecosystem.
Approximately 400,000 sq km of tropical ocean floor are covered by coral which needs sustained sunlight warmer waters and increased levels of carbonate to grow. Along 2100 kms of Australia’s north east coast in a marine park, the size of Germany, is the biggest collection of 2,900 reefs known as the Great Barrier Reef.
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