Are Coral Reefs Doomed Within the Next Few Years?

A recent science news report stated that, according to a study signed by 160 researchers, the destruction of coral reefs is now almost certainly irreversible. The report says that most coral reefs will die once global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.

At present, the climate has warmed by 1.4 degrees, according to scientists, which means that the temperature leading to the irreversible collapse of reefs is expected to be reached within the next few years. When that happens, for example, the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica are likely to collapse.

And that’s not all — according to the lead author of the report, Tim Lenton, one of the tipping points involves the collapse of existing ocean currents, which would have catastrophic consequences. If this were to occur in the ocean circulation system known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), it would disrupt the global climate and, among other effects, cool the winters of Finland and the rest of Europe.

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I wanted to highlight this topic because the report provides a clear prediction — one that will be fascinating, if admittedly frightening, to follow in the coming years. It’s especially intriguing because the timeframe mentioned is “in the next few years,” which to my ears sounds more like less than ten years rather than more. At the very least, it doesn’t imply waiting several decades, as shown by the chart published a couple of years ago by the University of Berkeley, which I’ve copied below.

So, I’ll try to remember to follow this issue in the coming years — and to report on it here in this blog, unless I become too senile before the coral reef catastrophe actually happens.

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Before that, however, it’s worth recalling a study from last year which found that coral reef restoration can accelerate the recovery of coral cover and carbonate production so rapidly that the reefs’ net carbonate budgets resemble those of healthy reefs within just four years. And this occurs under the current climate, which is already 1.4 degrees warmer than in pre-industrial times.

And that’s not all — this year another study was published showing that there are also coral reefs that are recovering. At least some can be found in the Chagos Archipelago, where coral cover on both the fore-reef and the lagoon increased by 59–67% after several years of bleaching.

It remains to be seen, however, whether this change of direction is only temporary — or whether it will prove to be permanent.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Climate Warning Signs Were There 130 Years Ago – If Only We Had Noticed
Diverging Findings in Antarctic Ice Sheet Research
Big Deal in the Cold North: Finland vs. Canada

The original blogpost in Finnish:
Tuhoutuvatko koralliriutat lähivuosina?

Diverging Findings in Antarctic Ice Sheet Research

Stokes and his colleagues have published a study indicating that by the end of the century, sea levels could rise by as much as a centimeter per year due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. This would happen even in the case where humanity manages to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Such a development would mean sea level rise of several meters over the coming centuries.

As a result, people living in coastal areas would need to be relocated, and buildings and other infrastructure built along the coasts would end up submerged. According to the study, a massive transformation lies ahead globally.

This study caught my attention, of course, for the reasons I briefly mentioned above. But also because Chinese researchers Wang, Shen and others have observed that between 2021 and 2023, the melting of the Antarctic seems to have turned into a net gain in ice mass.

This suggests that the results of different researchers are in some degree of contradiction. That, of course, is not unusual—let alone unique—in the scientific world, but it does offer an interesting topic to follow in the coming years.

It could be, of course, that the future projections made by Stokes and his colleagues based on a synthesis approach contain errors—or alternatively, that the increase in Antarctic ice mass observed by Wang and Shen is merely a temporary anomaly within the broader process of ice loss.

Time will tell—if not for us, then for future generations—whether we are facing a catastrophe for the world’s coastal cities or whether the effects of greenhouse gas emissions turn out to be less severe than current research suggests.

For those reflecting on the matter, a reasonable suggestion would be to monitor the changes in Antarctic temperatures over time. For example, according to data from the Vostok Station, located in the interior of the continent and operational since 1958, the warmest years there have been 2007 and 1980. The average temperature in 2007 was -52.60°C, and in 1980 it was -53.02°C.

At those temperatures, ice is unlikely to melt at Vostok—but things are different along the coast. For instance, at Casey Station, which has been operational since 1957, the highest annual average temperature on record was measured in 1980, at -6.55°C. That’s not warm enough to melt ice either, but during the summer months—December and January—average temperatures at Casey rose above freezing.

Aiempia ajatuksia samasta aihepiiristä:
Ice Sheet Losses in Antarctica and Greenland
Reevaluating Arctic Sea Ice Melt: A Closer Look at Trends and Predictions
The amazing adventures of the German cockroach

The EU Needs Innovations That Drive Climate Neutrality

As a result of human activity, the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is considered one of the greatest future risks, as scientific models indicate it raises atmospheric temperatures and thereby causes major changes around the world. For this reason, for example, the European Parliament has approved a climate law that raises the EU’s 2030 emissions reduction target from the previous 40% to 55%, and makes climate neutrality by 2050 a legally binding objective.

To achieve this goal, we can either return to the Stone Age or develop new technology. Finnish company Elementic has chosen the latter and is currently building a pilot plant based on its own innovation. In practice, this means producing a construction material similar to bricks, using lignin — the natural binder found in wood — as the key ingredient.

Since lignin makes up about one-third of wood, this would significantly increase the value of forests and allow the forest-based industry to grow without compromising the production of its current products. As an added bonus, carbon dioxide emissions from construction would disappear, as a house built from lignin bricks would store more carbon than is emitted during its construction.

To top it off, there are two more noteworthy advantages. First, production can be scaled up quickly by modernizing existing brick factories in Finland and elsewhere in Europe — there’s no need to build new production facilities for lignin bricks. Second, lignin as a building material is non-flammable, weather-resistant, and rot-proof.

It remains to be seen whether the Finnish company will succeed in selling its new product to construction firms — and whether, as a result, the EU’s goal of climate neutrality might be achieved much more easily than it seemed not long ago. In any case, it is already clear that the EU needs more innovations like the one described above to drive progress toward climate neutrality.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Big Deal in the Cold North: Finland vs. Canada
Strong statement or intellectual dishonesty in COP27?
The reasons behind the fall of Nokia´s cellphone business

Evolution Doesn’t Just Create New Species – It Can Also Reverse It

When Charles Darwin pondered how a single species could, over time, become two distinct ones, he realized that natural selection could act differently on separate populations, gradually driving them apart. This insight was so powerful that it gave rise to an entirely new scientific field: evolutionary biology.

To this day, the emergence of new species remains a central concept in evolutionary biology, and understanding the mechanisms behind it is one of the field’s key research questions. At the same time, hybridisation between populations that have evolved in isolation can influence the pace of speciation—either speeding it up, slowing it down, or even reversing it altogether.

A recent study by Ingo Müller and colleagues delved into the evolutionary history of Melidectes, a bird genus found in New Guinea that includes six species living in various mountainous regions at different elevations. Most of these species occupy separate areas, but two of them meet and hybridise in the central mountain range.

Despite this overlap, scientists had assumed that differences in plumage and adaptations to elevation would help maintain clear species boundaries. However, Müller and his team used genomic and genetic analyses to show that these visible differences do not, in fact, prevent gene flow between the two species. On the contrary, the researchers discovered that their genes are mixing extensively across most of their shared range.

This makes the bird community formed by these two species quite unusual. It follows a pattern where the most genetically distinct and least interbreeding populations are found at the geographical edges of their ranges. Remarkably, this is the case even though their maternally inherited mitochondrial genomes still sort neatly into two deeply divergent lineages, consistent with their traditional species identities.

These findings led the researchers to conclude that the two incipient species have recently begun to merge—possibly due to increased contact brought on by climate warming—resulting in nearly complete fusion into a single lineage. In other words, a speciation process that was well underway has now stalled, and the two almost-species appear to be on the path to becoming one unified species again.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The Dire Wolf and the Rights of Extinct Human Species
Shower Taking and Interfering Elephants
The fundamentals of conservation biology wavered