Thread by @ramez

Of all the ecological impacts of climate change, the one that scares me the most is the loss of coral reefs. New research suggests this could happen much earlier than we thought (at 1.5C of warming, or ~20 years from now, rather than at 2C of warming). phys.org/news/2022-02-c… /1

Coral reef systems are the "rainforests of the sea", hosting an estimated 25% of the biodiversity in the oceans. They also provide the protein (fish) that roughly 500 million people depend on. Theyn protect coastal areas from storms and erosion. And they're beautiful. 2/

Previously we were thought that corals would be almost wiped out by 2C of warming. This new research uses higher resolution modeling to find that even at 1.5C of warming, most reefs would be exposed to heat-driven bleaching events too often to recover. phys.org/news/2022-02-c… 3/

This doesn't mean that they're doomed. Humanity could intervene to save them. We could selectively breed coral species to better survive heat, for example. (And it's just one study, which could be off.) But it does increase the urgency and level of risk here. 4/

There is virtually no possible world in which we keep global temperature rise well below 1.5 degrees C. Short of the world embracing geoengineering (worthy of a different thread) it's just not going to happen. 5/

So the answer here is that *in addition to* rapid decarbonization, and in addition to increasing careful research into geoengineering, we need to start developing more technologies, policies, and business models to take care of coral reefs and boost their resilience. /fin