Coral reefs suffering from climate change: scientists warn we’ve crossed a tipping point

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What if the world's coral reefs
are no longer a future crisis?

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Like we're not predicting this anymore,
but a crisis is already underway.

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A new global report warns that we've
passed the first major climate tipping

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point and the way we thought about
gradual change may already be too late.

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I remember diving in like
beautiful spots in the Caribbean.

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Grant came in, is one of the spots
that I remember just profusely.

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It's just amazing way to go
down and enjoy a coral reef that

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hasn't been touched by anything.

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But then I've also gone diving
on a lot of sites that have

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been touched by climate change.

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Rapid increases in temperature.

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Throw off the corals.

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They bleach for too long, and
they end up being ruined and

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the entire habitat's ruined.

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The fish are gone.

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There's nothing for that area, not just to
scuba dive, but to fish on, or even just

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to provide protection for the coastline.

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We're gonna talk about this new
tipping point, how it's already

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underway, and the time for prediction
is over on this episode of the

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How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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Let's start the show.

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Hey everybody.

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Welcome back to another exciting episode
of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and
this is the podcast where you find

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out what's happening with the ocean,
how you can speak up for the ocean,

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and what you can do to live for
a better ocean by taking action.

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On today's episode, we're gonna be talking
about what's happening in the ocean.

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Unfortunately.

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It's not good news.

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There was a report that came out that
I actually saw on The Guardians, an

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article on The Guardian that talked
about this report, that talked about

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tipping points and how coral reefs have
already hit the first tipping point.

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Now, a tipping point is essentially
a point in which these coral reefs or

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habitat or something in the wild has gone
past where there's really no going back.

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Right?

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That tipping point is where, you know,
you look at something that like a

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bottle of liquid and when you tip it
over, you lose more and more liquid.

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But at some point you're gonna
tip it so much that you're

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gonna lose most of that liquid.

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That's the tipping point that
we're kind of talking about here.

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But in this case, we're talking about
coral reef health and what we've seen over

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the time, like in the past few decades is
the prediction of hearing that coral reefs

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are going to be lost on a regular basis.

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We're gonna see that coral reefs in
certain areas, whether it be remote

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or on the coastline are gonna be lost
for a long time, if not forever, or

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we're going to see a shift in that
change of species makeup because

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it can only handle a specific
tolerance of environmental factors.

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So let's just talk about
coral reefs for a second.

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They are an animal.

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They have a very narrow tolerance
for different environmental

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factors such as temperature, pH
and just salinity in general.

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If you've ever had a marine aquarium at
home like I have in the past, you will

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know that when you put a coral reef in
the tank, it is very sensitive to change.

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So when you have a smaller tank,
especially when you compare it to the

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ocean, any change in water quality,
like a dip in salinity, or an increase

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in salinity, or a dip in temperature,
or an increase in temperature, or a

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dip in pH, or an increase in pH, if
it's this out of whack within that

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narrow range in any of those, or
all of those will kill the corals.

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They will die if it's prolonged.

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And so I was explaining this to a friend
of mine at work today who was asking

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about coral reef health, and he was
like, what happens when coral reefs die?

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And essentially when sea
surface temperature related,

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or there's something that

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is not good.

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That's happening in the ocean,
right where the zoo the little

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phytoplankton that live in the
corals, they start to get excited.

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They don't like what's happening in there.

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It's either too hot or
something's gone wrong.

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The pH is off, something's gone wrong.

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They get ad, they get expunged.

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Actually, the coral reef skeletons
like, you gotta get outta here.

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And when that phytoplankton
leave the coral skeleton.

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It is just a skeleton.

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The phytoplankton provide the
color and provide the ability for

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it to be fleshy kind of thing.

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Like that flesh that you see
on a coral, the softer part of

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the coral around a hard coral.

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If you think about like a branching coral,
there's a little bit of a flesh around

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it, like a little polyps that come out.

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That's the fleshy part.

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That will eventually die.

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And then you'll just have a coral
skeleton, which is basically a rock,

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like it's made of limestone and
will eventually degrade over time.

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If there's the environmental factors
there, like say high sea temperature,

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if that's there for a prolonged
amount of time, so more than like four

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or five days, six, seven days, the
phytoplankton won't come back, but if

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it does go back to the regular range,
you also get new phytoplankton in.

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There's an ability for this coral to
recover and become healthy once again.

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So we've seen that over time.

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The Great Barrier Reef is a great example.

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93% of the barrier Reef a
couple years ago bleach.

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But then most of that came back
because it wasn't a prolonged event.

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It wasn't a prolonged like high sea
surface temperature event where we

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saw bleaching for a long, long time.

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It was just in short spurts.

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Still not great, still not healthy
for the coral, but it allowed

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it to recover in most places.

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This happens all over the world.

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Now we're starting to get to points
where this tip, like the tipping point,

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we're starting to get to points where

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they're not gonna recover because
the amount of days where the

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temperature is high is elongated
just it lasts for a longer time.

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And so when we see that, we start
to see the corals bleach for longer

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and then they start to die off.

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Now these are areas like the great
barrier reef, where we've got areas

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along the coastline where people
fish, they provide security for

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wave action against wave action.

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When you see like tsunamis or even
high sea like sea waves come through.

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They provide all that safety because
when the wave energy goes over the

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corals, because the corals are kind of
like interjecting and getting in the

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way of the wave, the energy dissipates
as it gets closer to the shore.

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It's not as if it's gonna be like perfect,
it'll just dissipate down to normal, but

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it will take away some of that energy so
you don't get as much of a storm surge.

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Or in the case of a tsunami, you'll get
less of a surge coming at the beach.

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And that's an important part when we
talk about security of a coastline from

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erosion or even just, you know, absolute
chaos when it comes to a tsunami.

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So that's what we're talking
about when we talk about tipping

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points and how things happen.

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You know, gradual impacts will happen.

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But if it continues to happen and it
continues to happen, we have a problem.

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There was a point where remote reefs
that weren't in contact, constant

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contact with humans, they were fine.

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They would bleach, but then they
would come back because there was

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nothing else that was cumulative.

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So there nothing else that was in its
way, like wasn't bad water quality, wasn't

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people diving on it all the time and like
messing it up or fishing all the time and

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like putting anchors along the coral reef.

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Nothing was disturbing it, but in areas
where they're along the coast where we

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had bad water quality coastal development
that caused sedimentation, that like

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would just basically smother the corals,
there would be like nutrients in there.

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So a lot of algae would
grow over the corals.

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All these little things didn't help.

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And then you have climate
change come through.

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They didn't have a chance.

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So a lot of these corals, if they
have a lot of cumulative impacts plus

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climate change, we have a big problem.

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But now just climate change is causing a
problem for a lot of these remote reefs.

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And that's a big problem.

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That's a huge problem.

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There's no more scuba diving on, no more,
snorkeling 'cause there's nothing to see.

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The fish are gone, the turtles will
be gone, the sharks will be gone.

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You know, invertebrates will be gone
because there's nothing there to hide.

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These coastal systems, these
coral reefs provide areas where

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you can hide as a fish, as an
vertebrate, so you can't get caught.

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And there's a lot of food in there as
well for specific species and stuff.

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It's really, really a diverse system
that is stable and that's what we want.

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Right.

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But here now we're talking about this
report that came out, it says Coral

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reefs have crossed their tipping
point threshold at about 1.2 degrees

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Celsius of warming above normal.

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Mass

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die off and decline are
inevitable in most reef systems.

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So we're expecting a lot of these
reef systems to just start to decline.

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Current global warming, is already
at 1.4 degrees Celsius, and it's

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predicted to go up to three degrees
Celsius above what is considered quote

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unquote normal for certain areas.

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Now, the future warming predictions
without radical emissions cuts the 1.5

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degrees Celsius is likely within probably
the decade and worsening the collapse.

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Now, the broader earth system risks
like ice sheets, Amazon, rainforest, and

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Atlantic circulation are closer to tipping
than scientists previously thought.

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Now these used to be
like way out predictions.

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It's gonna happen in like a hundred years.

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It's gonna happen in like 200
years and stuff like that.

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Now the predictions are coming
even closer because we've already

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hit these tipping points and this
is gonna be a cascading effect.

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Now, of course, once one system
collapses like reefs, you know,

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death, reducing carbon storage
can accelerate other stressors.

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Like even when we talk
about forest fires, right?

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and the fact that we have wildfires.

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As these trees burn up, all the
carbon that they used to store

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would go into the atmosphere.

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It's the same thing with coral reefs.

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All the carbon that they stored
in the rocks, in the corals would

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go up into the ocean, into the
atmosphere, making things worse.

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Some experts note that
there is uncertainty.

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So coral refuges and cooler or
deeper waters may actually persist.

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Local management that manages pollution
and overfishing still actually matters.

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So the fact that you can take
away cumulative effects from human

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effects, that's a huge thing.

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That's a very big plus and allows the
coral reef systems to be a little bit more

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resilient in the face of climate change.

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Not to say that climate change
won't affect them periodically,

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but it may not affect them on a
permanent basis in certain areas.

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Now, of course, not all scientists
agree on the precise thresholds.

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Reef resilience may vary from region
to region and from species to species.

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I remember reading studies that have
different types of phytoplankton within

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the corals, so they call 'em A, B,
C, and D. The D type had a larger

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range of temperature threshold, so
that means it could handle a lot more

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of a higher range of temperature.

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These zoo, these phytoplankton that
are in the corals, if it's a higher

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temperature, they can actually stay in for
longer, but it's only in specific species.

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reeses, we know it could change in
the makeup that they have that may

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not be more branching corals or harder
corals might be more soft corals.

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So that might be a
change that we might see.

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Now, of course, some ecosystems show
recovery potential if local stressors are

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managed, which I talked about already.

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These create tensions between like
the Domus narratives, it's over,

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and the resilience narratives.

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There's still hope.

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So I never wanna say that our
coral reefs are beyond repair.

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What I'm saying is that we're
gonna see a change in coral reefs

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if we don't make any changes.

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If we get back through like lower
than the tipping point of the 1.2

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degree Celsius or whatever that might
be, then we are in better shape.

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Unfortunately, the actions that we've
taken as a human species hasn't even

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come close, and we're actually predicted
to go to three degrees above normal.

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So that's gonna be a problem.

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So like some of the consequences
that we're gonna see in cascading

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risks is like reef collapse, that
which is reducing biodiversity.

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Affects keystone species that it
could be good for fisheries, that

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could be good for stabilizing the
ecosystems like sharks and so forth.

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And of course, destabilizes ocean
food webs, as I just mentioned,

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without sharks or any other types
of predators that actually are like

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apex predators for that food web.

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Now, of course, you know, reefs are
dependent and people dependent on reefs.

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So 500 million people worldwide
depend on reefs for food,

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income and coastal protection.

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Reef loss means that food insecurity,
economic hardship and greater exposure

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to storms are gonna be get worse.

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And that's not good.

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So the dying ecosystems release
carbon when they die, and so they

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lose their capacity to absorb
it, worsening climate change.

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So that's gonna cascade in
a bad way, let's just say.

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But look, there is a path forward.

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There are a lot of paths forward,
so the global actions like urgent

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emission reductions are the
only way to halt the warming.

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That is really it.

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Anybody else can say like, we can
do as much restoration for corals or

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sea grasses or anything like that,
that will help in the meantime.

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But while we see this happen,
we have to reduce urgently these

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emissions, like we have to cut them.

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It's has to happen.

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We're starting to see the emergence of
renewable energy, which is great, but

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we're also starting to see that there's
a lot of halting of that renewable energy

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or the construction of that renewable
energy because of other fossil fuel favor

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I guess is really what it comes down to.

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a lot of countries.

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So we're still having that push and
pull, including my own, in Canada.

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We're still having that push and
pull, which is not good for us.

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Now, local mans are reducing
any kind of cumulative effects,

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so overfishing, pollution or
destructive practices can help.

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The measures won't stop bleaching
necessarily, but can help by

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reefs like some reefs, some
time, which will be great.

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And restoration and innovation.

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So coral nurseries assisted evolution,
which has just changed like looking at

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the makeup of how this is gonna change.

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Like, so some researchers are working
on heat tolerances of coral reefs, and

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then of course large scale restoration,
which is extremely expensive.

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Efforts offer potential, though not
at a scale that will help the crisis.

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So there are some positive tipping points.

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So there's renewable energy
growth, as I mentioned.

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There's following battery prices so we
can store that renewable energy more.

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And lifestyle changes can quickly
reshape systems giving hope.

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So look within, look at home,
start small and then act big.

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You know, they also say act
local, you know, think global.

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That's what we need to do.

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Of course there is a huge role for
science communicators and public

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voices, but they need to be listened
to and we need to be really cognitive

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of how we portray this message.

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I don't want people to feel
like, Hey, it's your fault.

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How dare you do this.

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If you ignore the problem,
it's not gonna go away.

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No, I think there's a
community aspect to it.

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It's like we wanna take care of
our community, our local community,

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our regional community, our
national community, you know,

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our international community.

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We wanna take care of each other.

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We wanna take care of this planet
because we love nature, we love

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the ocean, and there's more to

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the planet than just earning
money and destroying the planet.

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There's more to that and we
need to act on it right now.

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So while reefs are in crisis, the
story isn't just about loss, it's

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about what we can choose to do now.

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Like I said, every personal
action that you take locally

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in your household will work.

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Every time you vote, vote for somebody
who's actually gonna vote for in

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favor of the environment of the ocean.

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Reduce climate change.

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Right.

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And advocacy steps like actually
focus on looking at nonprofit

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organizations or organizations that
are out there, or even individuals

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that are out there that are helping
to support reducing climate change.

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They're helping to support the
education of what we need to do

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to help our planet, what we need
to do to reduce this tipping point

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or get back over, hopefully, that we can
stop from getting further down the road

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and losing coral reef systems altogether
in a longer term, which is not good.

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Right?

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So the choices between like we
can go cascading collapses, or

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we can go cascading solutions.

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Which one do you want?

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Let me know in the comments below.

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I'd love to hear if you're
watching this on YouTube.

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Love to hear your opinion on this.

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Is it to doom and gloom?

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Or do you think that we have
passed the tipping point and

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we need to get back into it?

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And you're ready to take some action?

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Let me know what action you're gonna take.

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Let me know the comments below.

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If you're watching this on YouTube,
if you're listening to this on

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the audio on your favorite podcast
app let me know what you think.

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DM me on Instagram at How to Protect
the Ocean, or Go to speak up for

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00:13:48,050 --> 00:13:52,700
blue.com/contact, fill out the form
goes right to my email address and

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I will answer it as soon as I can.

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I wanna thank you so much for
joining me on today's episode of the

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How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from
the True Nor Strong and Free.

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Have a great day.

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We'll talk to you next time
and happy conservation.