First proof that air pollution affects coral growth revealed (Video)

A team of climate scientists and coral ecologists from the United Kingdom, Australia, and Panama, is the first to definitely prove that air pollution stunts coral growth in the April 7, 2013, issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

The team lead by Lester Kwiatkowski, a doctoral student in Mathematics at the University of Exeter, and colleagues used a combination of records retrieved from within the coral skeletons, observations from ships, climate model simulations, and statistical modeling to examine coral growth rates in the Caribbean in the twentieth century.

A new study has found that pollution from fine particles in the air -- mainly the result of burning coal or volcanic eruptions -- can shade corals from sunlight and cool the surrounding water resulting in reduced growth rates.

Photo credit: 

Lester Kwiatkowski, University of Exeter

The scientists found that particulate pollution had the most detrimental effect on coral growth. The shading of the sun by particulate pollution and the cooling of the waters that corals live in were the causes of slower growth rates. The symbiotic algae that are part of coral require sufficient sunlight to produce photosynthetic products and energy that are necessary for coral growth.

Volcanic activity recorded in the early twentieth century produced a slow coral growth rate period and increased particulate pollution from coal burning was determined to have reduced coral growth in the later twentieth century based on the researcher's investigations.

Coral reefs are the residence of more than 25 percent of all ocean life. The animals that inhabit coral reefs feed over half the population of the world.