Our planet offers us some protection against dangerous and devastatingly deadly things in the universe. If the sun’s radiation could penetrate at full strength, our planet would be completely uninhabitable. It would heat up above 700 degrees in direct sunlight, and cool to minus 400 degrees without the sun, a temperature that is called absolute zero. By having an atmosphere, the Earth is protected from this phenomenon and essentially, it acts like an oven keeping a relatively consistent temperature.Half the energy that passes through our atmosphere from the sun is absorbed by the Earth’s surface. The energy that is not absorbed by the surface is then reflected back into the atmosphere where it is absorbed by a blanket of gases. The heat absorbing gases there are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen dioxide. These gases are called Greenhouse Gases, and though they occur naturally in the Earth’s atmosphere, they are also produced by humans. The more gases present in our solar system results in the more heat that can be absorbed. The result is our planets temperature rising. This is called the greenhouse effect, or more commonly, Global Warming.

Global warming is affecting our planet in many dangerous ways. The ice caps are melting and causing water levels to rise. This is known as thermal expansion. When the water heats up, it begins to swell. Warmer waters are forcing some animals out of their natural habitat. Marine life is very precise. It has evolved over billions of years to live in a specific climate and the majority of creatures cannot just readapt to changes as humans can. A few degrees does not affect us, we’re used to changing climates. However, it does affect many other species that are forced to move, or forced into extinction. The rearranging of these species is just one of the dangerous things taking place. This affects much of our ocean, and will eventually start to affect humans. The great coral reefs of the world’s oceans are already starting to see the adverse effects of global warming.

One of the problems produced by global warming which is affecting the coral reefs is carbon emissions. Excessive carbon in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels over the last two centuries has caused increased levels of acidity in our oceans. This is threatening the oceans ecosystems and sea creatures, and their food supplies are in great danger. People must act quickly in order to save the Earth’s coral reefs. These vital ecosystems will not survive the global warming and acidification predicted for this century. The lack of sustainability in the world’s carbon emissions is causing the rapid loss of coral reefs, the world’s most bio-diverse marine ecosystem.

The world’s coral reefs have already sustained considerable damage from recent warmer temperatures, but the rapid rising of carbon dioxide causes acidification, which adds an entirely new threat. With this acidification, coral reefs lose the ability to create calcareous skeletons. Acidification will threaten all animals and plants with these calcareous skeletons, including corals, snails, clams and crabs. Studies show that levels of CO2 could be unsustainable for coral reefs in as little as five decades.

The livelihoods of one-hundred-million people living along the coastlines of tropical developing countries will be among the first major casualties of rising levels of carbon. The warmer and more acidic oceans threaten to completely destroy the coral reef ecosystems. This will expose people to flooding, coastal erosion and the loss of food and income from reef-based businesses and tourism. And this is happening when many nations are hoping that these industries will allow them to improve their poverty-stricken state. These coral reefs are often portrayed as natural wonders of the world which possess great beauty. This makes them very important in the attraction of tourists to support an economy. In Australia, revenue from international tourism to the Great Barrier Reef exceeds 6 billion dollars annually. And coral reefs generate tens of billions worldwide each year.

Coral reefs occupy a unique niche in the world’s environment, where water temperatures and other environmental factors are right. Raising temperatures as little as one-degree near the surface of water can subject the coral reef to stresses which lead quickly to mass bleaching. To raise the temperature more, the corals which build reefs will die in great numbers. Global warming will ultimately result in no coral, and no coral reef ecosystem. The environment that has surrounded coral reefs from millions of years is changing so fast that compensatory biological response is lagging behind and putting the marine ecosystem at risk. A coral reef ecosystem possesses the highest biodiversity on Earth.

Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within any given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often times used as a measure of the health of different and unique biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth today consists of many millions, possibly billions, of distinct biological species. This is the product of four-billion-years of evolution. Most of the species to go extinct from these ecosystems are the result of human activities. Even if human livelihoods weren’t at stake, the destruction of the coral reefs would result in a large percentage of all marine life becoming extinct.

The fact is, people don’t care enough about the marine life to reverse this trend. But people should be made well aware of the devastating effects that the coral reefs will have on them. People who live in coastal cities where the coral is their life-blood should be very concerned. World leaders are meeting frequently to discuss ways to stop carbon dioxide emissions into our atmosphere and ultimately our oceans. They are trying to reverse the trend to save lives, both on shore and in the waters. If the current CO2 emission trend continues, then even the most conservative estimates predict CO2 concentrations exceeding 500ppm and global temperatures increasing by 2-degree Celsius. Under those drastic conditions, coral reefs will dwindle into insignificance and be reduced to rubble, threatening the fate of tens of millions of people who depend on them.

Tags: coastal, Coastlines, coral reefs, global warming, marine life

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 5:16 am and is filed under Corel Reefs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.