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Shouldn't reefs just migrate north in the northern hemisphere, and southwards in the southern hemisphere? I know this process can be quite slow, but on a long
by jgalt212 11y ago
Shouldn't reefs just migrate north in the northern hemisphere, and southwards in the southern hemisphere?
I know this process can be quite slow, but on a long enough time frame it's conceivable there may be no net loss and possibly even a gain global reef acreage?
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoYes this has happened repeatedly thru geological history. I live in Iowa, and its limestone rock is all coral. We're 100's of miles from any ocean today. But coral is built to respond gradually over decades. It's never going to be able to migrate in time at this rate.
- scarmig 11y agoA temperature delta over a millennium is very different than that same delta over a century. Coral reef ecosystems take centuries to establish themselves and mature. They can't simply grow legs and walk a couple miles north every year.
- scarmig 11y agoTo answer your question: sure, 2000 years from now it's hard to predict total acreage, and it may well be higher (or lower). But there's little uncertainty that on the timescale of centuries, corals will be devastated, and that means really bad things for us and our children, to say nothing of the health of marine ecosystems.
- fche 11y ago"corals will be devastated, and that means really bad things for us and our children" What "really bad things" would you or your children suffer, should all the corals suddenly become sentient and beam into outer space? Just curious.
- n72 11y agoFrom the article: "An estimated 30 million small-scale fishermen and women depend on reefs for their livelihoods, more than one million in the Philippines alone. In Indonesia, fish supported by the reefs provide the primary source of protein."
- fche 11y agoThanks, so it's a human-food availability concern.
- n72 11y agoI think it's also the problem that we just can't predict what the consequences are of such a large ecological change.
- beatpanda 11y agoIt's also inherently a problem that we're going to lose lots of plant and animal species that depend on the coral reefs, simply because those plants and animals are beautiful and we will have been responsible for their deaths. "Well don't worry, we'll just get food from somewhere else" is not a real answer. At some point, life on a dead planet just isn't worth it anymore.
- tremon 11y agoI think that's so shortsighted, it borders on being rude. It's the most direct impact it has on us, yes, but it's not just food availability for humans that's impacted. We are looking at the devastation of an entire habitat. Many species that rely on that habitat may cease to exist. As a consequence, many species that eat animals from that habitat may disappear too. Worst-case, we're faced with the disappearance of an entire food chain. And since many large ocean species travel the entire world, the consequences will not remain local.
- greeneggs 11y agoRegarding water temperature, there are two big changes when you move away from the equator: 1. Temperatures drop. 2. Temperature variability increases. (Seasons are more meaningful away from the equator.) The second issue, of temperature variability, is a main problem that prevents reefs from migrating away from the equator in response to global warming. The corals can't tolerate a wide range of temperatures. The other problem, as you say, is the time frame. Reefs are built up over thousands of years, and we are warming and acidifying the oceans over mere decades. (And ocean acidification isn't helped at all by moving away from the equator.)