Coral reefs: Earth has crossed a point of no return
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
A study confirms the crossing of Earth's first 'tipping point': the widespread degradation of coral reefs.
Coral reefs: Earth has crossed a point of no return
A study confirms the crossing of Earth's first 'tipping point': the widespread degradation of coral reefs.
Earth has crossed its first "tipping point" – a point of no return – due to human activities. A report signed by 160 scientists from twenty-three countries, published on Monday 13 October, has explained that coral reefs have reached a level of "widespread degradation" and are today facing "an unprecedented crisis". This risks triggering a domino effect with serious repercussions for human beings as well.
An unprecedented bleaching event hits coral reefs
The ecosystems generated by the presence of coral reefs are, in fact, fundamental to life in the seas. These are places capable of hosting an immense biological diversity, both in terms of flora and fauna, and are consequently crucial to the entire food chain.
Record-breaking ocean temperatures have caused widespread bleaching and death among warm-water corals, which could have far-reaching consequences newscientist.com/article/249958…
These are, however, fragile environments: corals are particularly sensitive to rising sea temperatures, which together with ocean acidification are at the root of the bleaching and death of the corals themselves. Since 2023, the fourth large-scale bleaching event has been under way – the most intense ever recorded – affecting more than 80 per cent of reefs worldwide.
What are the other tipping points we are on the verge of crossing
In concrete terms, corals are placed under stress by the changing conditions of their habitats and, as a result, expel the microorganisms that provide their nutrition and give them their characteristic vivid colours. "We are losing essential ecosystems," confirmed Tim Lenton, lead author of the report and director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom.
This is not the only point of no return that Earth is on the verge of crossing. In 2022, a group of researchers had identified sixteen tipping points: those we are dangerously close to include the disappearance of the ice sheet in Greenland and West Antarctica, the sudden melting of permafrost in boreal regions, and the disruption of the clockwise ocean current system of the North Atlantic (known as the North Atlantic circuit). In addition, of course, to the extinction of tropical and subtropical corals.
We are on course to lose up to 90% of coral reefs by 2050.
The record-breaking heat stress damaging coral across most of the #GreatBarrierReef is now officially part of a global mass bleaching event accelerating this loss.
Via @WWF
The record-breaking heat stress damaging coral across most of the #GreatBarrierReef is now officially part of a global mass bleaching event accelerating this loss.
Via @WWF
The appeal ahead of Cop30: "Immediate and unprecedented action is needed"
"All of this," Lenton added, "calls for immediate and unprecedented action on the part of the leaders at the upcoming Cop30 and on the part of policymakers around the world." The thirtieth United Nations world climate conference, scheduled for November in Brazil, is however not being approached with great optimism. Despite the commitment of the nation led by Lula, Trump's United States has already announced a broad disengagement, while in Europe rollbacks on environmental regulations are multiplying.