Nearly every coral reef could be dying by 2100 if current carbon dioxide emission trends continue, according to a new review of major climate models from around the world. The only way to maintain the current chemical environment in which reefs now live, the study suggests, would be to deeply cut emissions as soon as possible. It may even become necessary to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, say with massive tree-planting efforts or machines.
The world’s open-ocean reefs are already under attack by the combined stresses of acidifying and warming water, overfishing, and coastal pollution. Carbon emissions have already lowered the pH of the ocean a full 0.1 unit, which has harmed reefs and hindered bivalves’ ability to grow. The historical record of previous mass extinctions suggests that acidified seas were accompanied by widespread die-offs but not total extinction.
To study how the world’s slowly souring seas would affect reefs in the future, scientists with the Carnegie Institution for Science in Palo Alto, Calif., analyzed the results of computer simulations performed by 13 teams around the world. The models include simulations of how ocean chemistry would interact with an atmosphere with higher carbon dioxide levels in the future.
Using the models’ predictions for future physical traits such as pH and temperature in different sections of the ocean, the scientists were able to calculate a key chemical measurement that affects coral. Corals make their shells out of the dissolved carbonate mineral known as aragonite. But as carbon dioxide pollution steadily acidifies the ocean, chemical reactions change the extent to which the carbonate is available. That availability is known as its saturation, and is generally thought to be a number between 3 and 3.5.
No precise rule of thumb exists to link that figure and the health of reefs. But the Carnegie scientists say paleoclimate data suggests that the saturation level during preindustrial times — before carbon pollution began to accumulate in the sky and seas — was greater than 3.5.
