Global Warming Killed the Coral Reefs?

Posted by Lene Johansen

I have lost the count on the number of stories I have seen about coral reefs dying out because of global warming.  A recent report in Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences details the corals warming adaptation strategy.

As the so-called climate change deniers emphasize continually: Climate changes, the only thing stable about the climate is that it changes. They are a modern day version of Heraclitus and his proclamation Panta Rei! for those of you who remember your western civilization classes. If climate change is permanent, it follows that the species alive today have a strategy for coping with the change.

We have seen this in papers published last year as well; one I remember quite vividly was about the migration of plants in the Arctic.

Now we have documentation about how the rich ecosystems around coral reefs adapt, so maybe its time to stop crying wolf and dedicate ourselves to an honest and meticulous examination of the actual effects of the changing climate?

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03/24/2008 @ 8:41 am | Environment, Global Warming | Comments

One Response to “Global Warming Killed the Coral Reefs?”

  1. Posted by: Marlo Lewis - 03/24/2008

    Nice post, Lene. This study is just the latest of several that show coral “switch partners” when things get too hot. World Climate Report reviews some of those studies here: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php?s=coral

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