20% Of Planet's Reefs Likely Beyond Recovery - ENS

[hatrack]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, December 6, 2004 (ENS) - Twenty percent of the world's coral reefs are so damaged that they are unlikely to recover, while another 50 percent could collapse, warns the 2004 edition of "Status of Coral Reefs of the World." Released today as delegates gather here for the annual conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, the report says global warming is the single greatest threat to corals.

The report is based on the findings of 240 experts from 96 countries that participate in the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. As climate change warms the sea and makes it more acid, the scientists predict massive bleaching events, such as the one which damaged or destroyed 16 percent of the world's coral reefs in 1998, will be a regular occurrence within 50 years.

The coral bleaching in 1998 was a one in a 1,000 year event in many regions with no past history of such damage in official government records or in the memories of traditional cultures of the affected coral reef countries. The report warns that massive global bleaching mortality will not be a 1/1000 year event in the future, but a regular event.

EDIT

Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved in sea water make it more acid, which slows the building of coral skeletons, a process called calcification. Coral experts say that calcification is likely to be reduced by up to 40 percent in corals when there is a doubling of CO2 emissions, which is predicted to happen by the middle of this century."

EDIT

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[Ian David]

1. Bush trumpets reef preservation success

Bush: "Our administration has been successful in preserving nearly 80% of the world's reefs."

[eleonora]

2. Enjoy earth as much as you can

And feel lucky you were one of those who could see nature as it was before man completely destroyed it.