Coral reefs, have often called "the rainforests of the sea" because of their richness in wildlife. The destruction in coral means also the elimination of the various life forms who used the coral as habitats.
Organisms reliant on coral are becoming rare many facing extinction.
More than 80 per cent of the reefs clustered around the Philippines are considered to be in jeopardy
.
Coral off the East coast of Africa has been reduced in recent years to a tenth of its size.
Cold-water reefs off the coast of Britain, reefs not yet accurately mapped, which are up to 8,500 years old, survive in the Atlantic at depths of 200 to 1,000 metres.
These reefs are under threat from the nets of trawlers that damage vast swathes of the reefs.
Scientists are issuing warnings that all these reefs will be destroyed.
Four-fifths of the coral on Caribbean reefs has disappeared in the past 25 years in a phenomenal saga of destruction.
There has been nothing like it in the past few thousand years according to a study published in the journal Science.
One of the most serious consequences of the decline is that the reefs from Barbados, the Florida Keys, Venezuela, Cuba, Panama, Mexico, may now be unable to withstand the effects of global warming.
"We report a massive region-wide decline of corals across the entire Caribbean basin," the five-strong team says in the introduction to the paper, in language remarkably strong for a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
"The ability of Caribbean coral reefs to cope with future local and global environmental change may be irretrievably compromised," the team reports.
The Great Barrier Reef coral will mostly be dead by 2050, says a study by Hans and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg — the head of Queensland University's marine studies centre. The report is entitled: "Implications of Climate Change for Australia's Great Barrier Reef".
The brightly-coloured corals that make Australia's Great Barrier Reef one of the world's natural wonders is dying because of rising sea temperatures.
Their 350-page report found no prospect of avoiding the "chilling long-term eventualities" of coral bleaching because greenhouse gases were already warming the seas as part of a process it said would take decades to stop.
Organisms reliant on coral are becoming rare many facing extinction.
More than 80 per cent of the reefs clustered around the Philippines are considered to be in jeopardy
.
Coral off the East coast of Africa has been reduced in recent years to a tenth of its size.
Cold-water reefs off the coast of Britain, reefs not yet accurately mapped, which are up to 8,500 years old, survive in the Atlantic at depths of 200 to 1,000 metres.
These reefs are under threat from the nets of trawlers that damage vast swathes of the reefs.
Scientists are issuing warnings that all these reefs will be destroyed.
Four-fifths of the coral on Caribbean reefs has disappeared in the past 25 years in a phenomenal saga of destruction.
There has been nothing like it in the past few thousand years according to a study published in the journal Science.
One of the most serious consequences of the decline is that the reefs from Barbados, the Florida Keys, Venezuela, Cuba, Panama, Mexico, may now be unable to withstand the effects of global warming.
"We report a massive region-wide decline of corals across the entire Caribbean basin," the five-strong team says in the introduction to the paper, in language remarkably strong for a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
"The ability of Caribbean coral reefs to cope with future local and global environmental change may be irretrievably compromised," the team reports.
The Great Barrier Reef coral will mostly be dead by 2050, says a study by Hans and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg — the head of Queensland University's marine studies centre. The report is entitled: "Implications of Climate Change for Australia's Great Barrier Reef".
The brightly-coloured corals that make Australia's Great Barrier Reef one of the world's natural wonders is dying because of rising sea temperatures.
Their 350-page report found no prospect of avoiding the "chilling long-term eventualities" of coral bleaching because greenhouse gases were already warming the seas as part of a process it said would take decades to stop.
Coral has a narrow comfort zone and is highly stressed by a temperature rise of less than one degree Celsius.
Water temperature rises of less than one degree coincided with the world's worst recorded coral bleaching episode in 1988.
With bleaching, the warmer water forces out the algae that give coral its colour and, if all are lost, the coral dies and the reef will crumble.
Water temperature rises of less than one degree coincided with the world's worst recorded coral bleaching episode in 1988.
With bleaching, the warmer water forces out the algae that give coral its colour and, if all are lost, the coral dies and the reef will crumble.
Many scientists say global temperatures are rising because fossil fuel emissions from cars, industry and other sources are trapping the earth's heat. Experts worry some coral reefs could be wiped out by the end of the century.
Tropical algae thriving on fertilizers from hotel golf courses and badly treated sewage killing coastal reef.
Source: AFP
Tropical algae thriving on fertilizers from hotel golf courses and badly treated sewage killing coastal reef.
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