Featured Image Credit: Daily Mail
By Emily Persico
The climate is changing. Since the industrial revolution, humans have been pumping carbon dioxide into the air. Slowly, temperatures have gone up with the increased concentration of this heat-trapping gas.
The seas are changing, too. Excess carbon dioxide is doing more than just raising temperatures; it is reacting with the ocean, increasing its acidity. These changes are ones that sea life must cope with—or face the consequences.
Right now, coral reefs are facing the consequences. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is at risk of bleaching for the second consecutive year. If bleaching were to occur, the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest organism, would have “zero prospect” of recovery. Halfway across the world the prospect does not look much better.
“There is a 50 percent to 80 percent reduction in coral cover in the Caribbean and the Pacific,” says Maggy Nugues, a senior lecturer at research institute Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. “This is very troubling.”
Unfortunately, this is only the beginning. No matter what we do, the ocean will keep getting warmer, more acidic. If carbon emissions are left unchecked, the situation will be even more dire.
Always prepared for the worst, scientists have found a way to mimic 2100’s worst case scenario in Japan’s “living laboratory” — underwater volcanoes.
Like climate change, underwater volcanoes pump heat and carbon dioxide directly into the surrounding oceans, which just so happen to be populated by the world’s northernmost corals.
The fact that coral reefs have adapted to survive under these conditions is certainly encouraging, even if the corals aren’t doing as well as corals in less acidic waters. Still, the time allotted for the rest of the world’s corals to adapt to these conditions will not be as generous.
“The planet [and Japan’s coral ecosystem have] evolved under relatively stable conditions, letting organisms and animals adapt,” explains Nugues. “But here we’re speeding things up, maybe faster than nature’s clock.”
Nevertheless, scientists will keep on searching for a solution. Sylvain Agostini, expedition coordinator and professor at Japan’s University of Tsukuba, is just one of the scientists still looking.
“…It’s here, in Shikine, in these natural laboratories that we hope to find the answer.”
While coral reefs may only cover 0.2 percent of the ocean’s surface, they are habitat to 30 percent of its plants and animals. They provide food and protection to countless species, us included.
“Losing these reefs would be horrifying,” says Agostini.
It really would. Read more from our source.