“Coral reefs are a good example of threshold and step-change behaviour. Reefs are subject to a wide variety of natural disturbances, from hurricanes to episodic outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish. Over the last several decades human stresses - nutrient and sediment loadings from adjacent coastal areas, fishing and tourism - have begun to interact with natural disturbances to put reefs under increasing stress. Global change is adding even more stresses of a quite different nature. Increasing atmospheric CO2 is changing the carbonate chemistry in the surface waters of the ocean, making it more difficult for reef organisms to form their hard shells. At the same time, warming of the upper ocean is leading to widespread bleaching events. These new, global-scale stresses operate everywhere, and are both persistent and inexorably increasing in severity. Given sufficient pressure from these interacting local to global stresses, coral reefs can cross a threshold with widespread death of the coral and a rapid change to colourless algal beds.”
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Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure: Executive Summary
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