Coral reefs can't find a strong purchase in the eastern tropical
Pacific thanks to more acidic waters--a potential precursor of
what the ocean will be like under global warming By David Biello
A new study confirms that coral reefs could become yet another
casualty of climate change if something is not done to cool the
warming globe. The reason: marine cements that bind together
reefs can't form in waters full of dissolved carbon dioxide
(CO2). Those off the west coast of Central America, particularly
around the Galapagos Islands, are kept soft by the more acidic
waters in that region—and may provide an early look at how coral
reefs will fare in the rest of the world as atmospheric CO2
levels rise. "The eastern Pacific is basically where the global
ocean belches or burps. Thus, these waters have naturally
occurring high CO2 and low pH" [an acidity/alkalinity scale; the
lower the number the greater the acidity], says Derek Manzello,
a biologist from the University of Miami and the National
Oceanic and Atmospher