Rate Of Coral Growth In Great Barrier Reef Down By 40% Since 70s - Acidification Largely To Blame
Corals in the Great Barrier Reef are diminishing, and scientists are blaming ocean acidification for their dangerously low growth rates, a new study describes. Coral growth rates have plummeted 40 percent since the mid-1970s, and given that the Australian reef is the site of the largest collection of corals - over 400 types - scientists are getting worried. "Coral reefs are getting hammered," study leader Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution said in a press release.
Not only from ocean acidification, he adds, but from global warming, coastal pollution and overfishing, which are also damaging these reefs that serve as havens for biodiversity. But for this study, published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, researchers focused on ocean acidification.
As it is, coral reefs are extremely sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry as a result of human activity. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, about one-third of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that has been released into the atmosphere as a result of fossil fuels, for example, has been absorbed by the oceans, where it damages coral reefs.
But when these ocean sinks absorb CO2, it impacts a vital process performed by corals called calcification, during which reefs use a mineral called aragonite to make their skeletons. How it works is the CO2 combines with the aragonite, a naturally occurring form of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), to form carbonic acid (H2CO3). This, in turn, makes the ocean more acidic and decreases its pH.
EDIT
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/9093/20140918/ocean-acidification-diminishing-great-barrier-reef-corals.htm
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