Climate Change Research

Abstract

As the reefs were recovering from the first observed mass mortality due to warming, additional ocean heat waves occurred, once again causing massive mortality and a ‘reset’ of the corals to a state of being mostly dead. Climate change is impacting several key factors: rainfall is increasing, with potential implications for terrestrial biota such as birds and nesting beach temperature; sea level rise and coastal erosion, the latter being complicated and exacerbated by the saucer-shaped profiles of most islands, and episodic inundation of land; and ocean acidification, which, while not as urgent, is likely to have much longer-lasting effects.

Topics & Concepts