Hey kids! If you didn’t know by now, Earth’s climate has been changing steadily, especially over the last few hundred years. This is though to be caused mostly by humans from polluting the air and water. There are many negative effects associated with all of this pollution.

The change in climate that causes these negative effects is called Global Warming. Global Warming can lead to many bad things. For example, rainfall patterns may change as well as a rise in sea level from glaciers melting.

Another thing that is negatively affected by Global Warming is the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is a coral reef in Australia, and it is one of the most beautiful and breathtaking parts of our planet. The things that humans are doing to the planet are making the Great Barrier Reef collapse.

This process is called Coral Calcification. The changing climate and poor water quality is threatening the Great Barrier Reef.

The way that the scientists found that the Coral Reefs were dying is by measuring the growth of 328 different corals from 68 different reefs from the years 1990-2005 and comparing them to the growth of reefs from earlier years. You see, the Great Barrier Reef is actually a chain made up of smaller reefs to form the bigger reef. They measured the yearly growth rate of the reefs and found they were actually declining in growth in a way that has never been seen before. The large difference in growth patterns from 1990-2005 and the earlier years shows that the decline in growth is specific to that time period.

They found out that these coral reefs respond badly to extreme changes in temperature.

The sad part about this is how many different underwater critters this one small change in the environment influences. These underwater animals use the reef for food, shelter, and protection. With the dying of the reef, these animals have to find other places to live—places that these animals are not used to. That’s like you suddenly being kicked out of your house and having to live on the streets! Not good, huh?

The way the environment is worsening is something we can actually change. We have to make better choices in how we use energy so that Global Warming does not continue to kill these reefs. The reef is so important to so many different animals. It would be terrible for the weakening of these reefs to lead to these animal’s deaths. We have the freedom to change our behavior and improve our environment. If we can do this, we would be able to save the reef and the lives of the animals.

Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef, by Glenn De’ath, Janice Lough, and Katharina Fabricius. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;323/5910/116?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=great+barrier+reef&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT January 2^nd, 2009