Coral reefs face extinction within 50 years: experts

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by AndyL

Yeah, but we forget how this work, CO2 acidifies the water, Calcium carbonate disolves, raising pH ... calcium reactor... Reefs have existed during periods where temperatures were much heigher, atmospheric CO2 much heigher...

Lets keep things in perspective...

C'mon Andy, you're being lazy :P

Pre-industrial Revolution, variable world oceanic pH was 8.0 to 8.3.
Today's average variable oceanic pH is 7.9 to 8.2.
That's over the course of 150 years.

Prehistorical parallels took tens of thousands, if not millions of years. Acidic oceans are not unprecedented (late-Jurassic ~7.5), but the rate at which they are becoming so is.

There's your perspective.