In both scenarios, large swaths of the ocean will be altered by climate change. Large-scale coral death on the Great Barrier Reef last year is thought to be strongly linked to climate change. “So we wanted to know when will climate change actually push the system outside the range of natural variability that organisms are used to,” Henson said. By 2030, they projected, 55 percent of the world’s oceans will experience changes in more than one of these factors — temperature and pH, most commonly — beyond the range of natural variability. The researchers focused on areas where multiple changes are occurring at once.

Source: Washington Post March 07, 2017 22:18 UTC