Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Global Warming Helps Coral Reefs?

Accroding to this AFP article an Australian study predicts that ocean warming caused by global warming (if there is, in fact, such a thing) would actually cause coral reefs to expand around the world, as opposed to decline asprevious research had suggested.
But the newly published research, by a team led by oceanographer Ben McNeil of Sydney's University of New South Wales, suggests that present coral reef calcification rates are not in decline and are equivalent to late 19th century levels.
"Our analysis suggests that ocean warming will foster considerably faster future rates of coral reef growth that will eventually exceed pre-industrial rates by as much as 35 percent by 2100," McNeil said in a statement Monday.
"Our finding stands in stark contrast to previous predictions that coral reef growth will suffer large, potentially catastrophic, decreases in the future."

Hmmm.
A report released earlier this year by scientists at Queensland University found that the brightly-coloured corals that make up the world-renowned Great Barrier Reef, one of the world's natural wonders, would be largely dead by 2050 because of rising sea temperatures.


Somebody's science need some looking into.

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