Shallow water coral distribution and its response to climate change

Author

Amaury De Jesus, CUNY City CollegeFollow

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

First Advisor

Zhengrong Wang

Second Advisor

Karin Block

Third Advisor

Kimberly Huppert

Keywords

Heat Stress, Ocean Acidification, Surface Coral Reefs, Climate Change, Saturation State of Aragonite, Shallow Coral Reef Habitability

Abstract

Shallow water corals are one of the main reef-building organisms that secrete carbonates as their skeletons, and therefore, are one of the major sinks of CO2 in the ocean. These reef builders are also very crucial to marine environments and human society. As the global energy demand continues rising, fossil fuel burning increases at a faster pace despite the increase in energy supply using clean and renewable energy. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has been shown to exacerbate global warming and may cause ocean acidification, threatening the habitat of shallow-water corals. Many recent observations show alarming signs of coral bleaching and dying, which is mainly caused by the exceptionally high seawater temperature(>29oC). However, it is still unclear about the environmental factors that determine habitable environments for shallow water corals, and how they respond to future climate change.

In this study, we compiled coordinates of ~0.8 million sites where shallow water corals have been observed from various data sources (including the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, National Coral Reef Monitoring Program, and Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program). Using these coordinates, sea surface temperatures and salinities are extracted from remote sensing data from NOAA, and chemical properties of seawater including pH and saturation state of aragonites (Ω) can be predicted using our new model that is tested by the real-time measurement of geochemical parameters in seawater. We then established a statistical model to define favorable living conditions for shallow water corals, which provide important implications for their fate during global warming. Temperature being the only one considered, our results predict that 10-60% of coral reefs around the world will diminish under the business-as-usual scenarios (SPS-5 8.5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports by 2100. If considering both temperature and pH, the eradication will come by 2030-2040.

Recommended Citation

De Jesus, Amaury, "Shallow water coral distribution and its response to climate change" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1174