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Coral Bleaching

Coral 'refugia' amid heating seas

Nature Climate Change volume 3, pages 444–445 (2013)Cite this article

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The Earth is getting hotter as carbon dioxide, predominantly from the burning of fossil fuels, continues to accumulate in the atmosphere. It is widely recognized that increasing temperatures pose a threat to coral reefs, but just how large a risk are these reefs facing?

When coral colonies are exposed to high temperatures, the result is often 'bleaching' — expulsion of their symbiotic zooxanthellae1,2. These algae convert sunlight to chemical energy, which is used by the corals. Without symbiotic zooxanthellae, coral reefs cannot grow. Corals can usually recover from bleaching episodes if they occur one or two times per decade, but the likelihood that corals will survive frequent bleaching is low. Thus, the onset of annual bleaching may be regarded as an indication that a reef has reached its demise.

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Figure 1: Increasing CO2, global warming and the demise of coral reefs.

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  1. Department of Global Ecology, Ken Caldeira is at the Carnegie Institution, Stanford, USA

    Ken Caldeira

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  1. Ken Caldeira
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Correspondence to Ken Caldeira.

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Caldeira, K. Coral 'refugia' amid heating seas. Nature Clim Change 3, 444–445 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1888

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