Corals Still Wiped Out Even If Paris Agreement Successful

Coral reefs are one of the most important parts of the ocean's entire biodiversity. The absence of these invertebrates could affect a quarter of the marine life and impact some businesses that rely on them. According to a new study, the likelihood of coral meeting their demise is high, even if the Paris climate agreement is met in the future.

Paris Climate Agreement and Doomed Future of Corals

The Maldives - On The Front Line Of Climate Change — MALE, MALDIVES - DECEMBER 12: Dead coral is pictured off the island of Huraa on December 12, 2019 near Male, Maldives. Some parts of the Maldives are believed to have lost up to ninety per cent of corals because of changing conditions such as rising sea water temperature. The livelihoods of most Maldivians depend on the reefs through fisheries, tourism and as a wave-break that helps to prevent flooding of low-lying islands. The Maldives is the worlds lowest lying country with a highest natural point of just 2.4 meters above sea level. As well as an increasing population, the nation faces a number of problems caused by climate change including rising sea levels, unpredictable weather, a shortage of drinking water, coastal erosion and declining fish stocks. With no rivers or streams on any of the islands, Maldivians have traditionally lived from fishing and except for Male and a handful of other islands, most islands rely on rain for drinking water and, increasingly, bottled water brought in from other islands. Carl Court/Getty Images

Pre-industrial levels must not increase 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next few decades for the entire planet to evade the devastating effects of climate change. If the global temperature exceeds the Paris climate goal cap, ice sheets will melt more than before, and sea levels will increase, affecting regions near water bodies the most.

According to the new study, Corals can also be inflicted by the uncontrollable outcomes of global warming's extremities. If the threshold from the Paris agreement were exceeded by today's surging temperatures, marine heatwaves would escalate. This will push 99 percent of our planet's coral into a predicament, a situation in which they will not recover further.

Coral mortality rates will reach 100 percent if the warming reaches just two degrees Celsius from today's standard heat. The data that reflects the study's future scenarios were gathered through a compilation of new climate models, complete with high-resolution imaging.

University of Leeds School of Biology expert and author of the study Adele Dixon said in a PhysOrg report that global warming does not secure a safety limit for the entire coral reefs we have on our oceans. The Paris cap of 1.5 degrees Celsius is still excessive warming of the ecosystem, Dixon added.

The 2015 Paris Agreement includes nearly 200 participating countries to keep global warming controlled below two degrees Celsius and prevent any more fatalities that climate change poses.

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Corals Dead by 2030 If Warming Increases by Two Degrees Celsius

Last August, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) said that the Paris agreement limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius will be hit by global temperatures by 2030.

In 2018, the UNIPCC already predicted devastating outcomes for corals. Exceeding the 2015 threshold will wipe out 70 to 90 percent of the entire corals. Adding just half a degree to the limit will annihilate 99 percent of their group. Dixon said their latest research showed how corals are put in an even more pressing problem than we first thought.

Marine waves are the most dangerous factors that could eliminate corals from the ocean's depths. Although corals are known to undergo 'thermal refugia,' or healing from heat damage, the full recovery takes a lot of time to process.

Co-author Maria Beger said in the report that coral communities have a healing process that can take up to 10 years, assuming that other factors such as dynamite fishing and pollution would not interrupt the activity.

The Great Barrier Reef, which houses the biggest coral system on the planet, has already gone through five separate bleaching events in just 25 years. Alongside the other factors on the aquatic aspect of oceans, the water body is also affected by the pollution of the atmosphere by taking up as much as 93 percent of the excess heat from the collective greenhouse gas emissions.

The disappearance of corals would impact the economy revolving around the invertebrate group by about 2.7 trillion dollars per year, in addition to the 36 billion dollars collected through tourism.

From 2009 to 2018, almost 8 percent of the corals were already wiped, leaving nothing but vast patches of bleached skeletons. The study was published in the journal PLOS Climate, titled "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."