Climate Change: Saving Coral In The Florida Keys

Climate Change
Unless you live under a rock, you will have noticed what’s happening around the human race due to global warming and climate modification. It is not only affecting us humans, it is also affecting our vegetation, our animals, and our oceans. I recently watched a video by National Geographic about the precious coral reefs in the Florida Keys and it talked about how the coral reefs cannot keep up with the rising sea level, so eventually they will all just die (“Fighting to Save Coral in the Florida Keys”). Additionally this will lead to habitat loss and then species dying off. If this scenario belonged to one area it would be tragic but climate change is disrupting habitats and killing off dependent mintage humanity worldwide.
It has been increasing since the 1980’s, but mainly around the western US. In the future, if heat-trapping gas emissions continue to grow, increases in the lengths of the frost-free and growing season are projected to increase in the US by the end of the century. The largest increases are projected for the western US in places with high elevation and coastal areas (“Climate Change: How Do We Know?”). The way climate change is affecting the wildlife in the different regions of our world is that melting Artic ice removes hunting ground for the polar bears, therefore, lack of food for them. Another way that the climate change is affecting the worlds’ wildlife is that rising ocean temperatures have caused coral bleaching, leading to ecosystems collapsing, which carry huge numbers of fish (“Coral Reefs Bleaching to Death.”). We also have our rainforests to worry about. As a result of climate change, it is causing the rainforest to dry out. Not only is it drying out, there is also deforestation going on which is causing habitat
Coral reefs are home to many fishes and plants. Because of global warming, 16% of the world’s coral reefs were wiped out in one year alone (“Global Warming and Coral Reefs”). Ocean temperatures have also risen by 1.3 ° Fahrenheit since the last 19th century (Coral bleaching and ocean acidification are two climate-related impacts to coral reefs). The increasing carbon dioxide levels lead to coral bleaching. This occurs when coral responds to the stress of the temperature warming. This expels the colorful algae that live within most of the coral dies, so the entire ecosystem disappears. Warmer waters are expected to increase the chance of coral diseases such as black band disease, white plague, and white pox. All of the diseases lead to the killing of coral reefs and the entire ecosystem is supports.
Another problem with global warming that is damages coral reefs is ocean acidification. The ocean absorbs one-third of the atmosphere’s excess carbon dioxide causing a more acidic ocean (Coral bleaching and ocean acidification are two climate-related impacts to coral reefs). In order of coral reefs to grow, it needs to produce limestone at a faster rate than the reef being eroded and ocean acidification slows the rate at which coral reefs produce limestone. All this causes coral skeleton to grow