Lakhsadweep corals threatened by global warming

The hard corals of porities are found in abundance in the blue of Lakshadweep Islands. Today these corals are facing a threat to their existence.

The growth of these corals has been destroying by the high co2 level in the air called global warming. The threat have gone to the existence that if the global warming is going to continue the corals would disappear from the earth for ever.

An observation made between 1993 and 2003 says that around 25 percent decrease in the growth rate of two hard corals was observed. Preliminary results of further studies indicate a similar pattern of growth retardation in the same species.

Around 1920 to 1992, the porites corals seem to grow by 2 cm every year. But today the growth rate decreased to 1.25 cm per year. The coral has been reduced since 1993. This is because of the climatic change as there is an increase in co2 levels and a rise in temperature lead to acidification of the ocean.

While the decrease in the growth of hard corals in Lakshadweep was around 25 percent, studies carried out on similar corals in the great barrier reed in Australia revealed it to be about 14 percent. The result of the observations clearly showed that the monsoon driven up-welling had decreased considerably during the 20th century.