How Does Global Warming Affect Coral

Global Warming Affecting Coral Reefs are worth $375 billion each year. They earn this money by attracting tourists. People also make a profit from the fish species that live in the coral (Casper 182), so if all the coral die due to global warming, humans will be affected as well. Coral are marine plants, and marine environments are the most diverse habitats in the world. If the planet was to lose all the coral in the world, it would decrease the diversity of the ocean (Casper 184). Plus, the destruction of reefs affect other animals such as reef fish, turtles, and sharks (Casper 185). All this is happening due to global warming. How does global warming affect coral? Global warming has and is still negatively affecting coral due to the rising temperature of the ocean. The oceans temperature rose 0.18° fahrenheit every decade between 1970 and 2010 due to global warming (Fujita). Even though this doesn’t seem like much of a change, this extra heat makes the sensitive coral more susceptible to illnesses (Le Page 37). The unusually warm waters makes the corals expel food-producing algae which causes the coral to lose its color, turn white, and die due to the lack of nutrition (Markey 1). This is called bleaching (Fujita). The bleaching epidemic caused large sections of the Great Barrier Reef to die because the past years high water temperature (Cave

The elevated temperature is the main effect of global warming and the affects branch out from there. Starting with bleaching and algae blooms that make the coral weak with starvation. Then if the lack of nutrients does not kill the coral the acidity of the water will slowly disintegrate the coral. Finally the storms will break up whatever coral remains. This cycle will continue until something is done to stop global warming. Only humans can fix the damage done, and it must be done