BRIEFING(HTTP://WWW.BUSINESSINSIDER.COM.AU/BRIEFING)

The Great Barrier Reef
May Be More Resilient
To Climate Change
Than We Thought
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Analysing fossilised corals suggests theGreat Barrier Reef was more resilient topast climate change than we thought, sayscientists.
However, the researchers caution thattemperature changes expected as a result ofmodern climate change will occur much
more rapidly and could kill off the reef.

According to a study published in thejournal Nature Communications(http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5102 ),there are fears that an increase in averagesummer temperatures by more than 1°C
will result in thermal stress, coral bleachingand death of the world’s largest coral reef
system.
Thomas Felis of the University of Bremen,
Germany, and colleagues investigate theresponse of Great Barrier Reef corals at theend of the last ice age, when global
temperatures rose significantly.
Through the analysis of fossil coralgeochemistry, the team show that between
20,000 and 13,000 years ago corals
survived and adapted to temperaturechanges of several degrees, much larger
than previously recognised.
Researchers note, however, that Great
Barrier Reef corals adapted to thesetemperature changes over a period ofseveral thousand years and suggest thatfurther work is required to determine thetimescales required to adapt to futurewarming.
Professor John M. Pandolfi, from the ARC
Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
and the University of Queensland, says thepaper shows there was remarkablevariation in sea surface temperatures on
the Great Barrier Reef between about
20,000 and 13,000 years ago.
However, it is still unknown how muchfurther increases in sea surface
temperatures will impact the survival ofcorals.

Professor Pandolfi says:“The temperature changes experienced
by these corals occurred in the absence ofany human impacts, so we are still
uncertain about how multiple stressorsthat include both increases in SST (seasurface temperatures) and local stressors
such as degraded water quality mightinteract to inhibit the thermal tolerances
observed in the absence of humans.”

Watch the video of the expedition which
gathered data for the study. The cores were
drilled during an expedition of theInternational Ocean Discovery Program
IODP in early 2010:

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