HR: 14:40h
AN: B53E-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Few Like it Hot: Coral Reef Reponses to Elevated Temperatures and CO2
AU: * Eakin, C M
EM: mark.eakin@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AU: Gledhill, D K
EM: dwight.gledhill@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AU: Heron, S F
EM: scott.heron@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AU: Skirving, W
EM: william.skirving@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AU: Christensen, T
EM: tyler.christensen@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AU: Morgan, J
EM: jessica.morgan@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AU: Liu, G
EM: gang.liu@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AU: Strong, A E
EM: alan.e.strong@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 1335 East West Highway, E/RA31, Silver Spring, MD 20910, United States
AB: Coral reefs live within a fairly narrow envelope of environmental conditions constrained by water temperatures, light, salinity, nutrients, bathymetry and the aragonite saturation state of seawater. As documented in numerous studies, the world's coral reefs are "in crisis" as a result of human impacts on their environment. While local stresses currently dominate, coral reefs are increasingly confronted with global-scale changes due to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. These changes are rapidly modifying the environmental envelope of coral reefs through both increased thermal stress and ocean acidification. In the former case, there is a well-documented relationship between thermal stress and the response of corals that include coral bleaching, disease, and mortality. Clear tolerance thresholds exist beyond which high temperature and accumulated thermal stress have deleterious effects. However, the synergistic effects of increasing temperature and ocean acidification are not yet fully understood. At this time, there is mounting concern that decreasing pH and aragonite saturation state will cause net reef accretion to cease or become negative. The threshold at which this could occur is likely to be reached much sooner than the pH drop necessary to induce carbonate dissolution. Both the thermal and chemical limits that control coral survival and reef growth will likely be passed before 2100 assuming even conservative projections reported in the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This talk will discuss these thresholds and their ramifications for ecosystems and resource management.
UR: http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/
DE: 0428 Carbon cycling (4806)
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE
DE: 1605 Abrupt/rapid climate change (4901, 8408)
DE: 4220 Coral reef systems (4916)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting