Coral reef after a bleaching event. These corals will die unless the algal symbionts quickly repopulate the coral. Most scientists believe that usually warm sea surface temperatures are at least partially responsible for regional bleaching events. © 2003. Reef Futures. Courtesy Ray Berkelmans, Australian Institute of Marine Science. 

Posted: 12:13 am PDT April 19, 2010Updated: 12:18 am PDT April 19, 2010 OAKLAND, Calif. — Many of us see planet earth as durable and powerful, but human senses fail to recognize what a surge of new science now confirms: Rapid and serious damage from greenhouse gases, including vast dead zones, now appearing off the Pacific Coast. Internationally respected Mbari ocean chemist Peter Brewer says 85 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from automobiles and fossil fuel power plants, their output equaling a million tons of carbon dioxide every hour dissolving into the ocean. “In the long term future, where there’ll be a huge swath of ocean, that will be inhospitable to marine life,” said Brewer. Research published Friday suggested that deep oceans are hiding heat that will likely accelerate global warming, spawn repeated El Nino’s and quicken ocean catastrophes. “l would say we have underestimated the effects and the predictions of ocean dead zones we are talking about, are probably an underestimate,” said Brewer. Scientists also say the Earth’s 10,000 coral reefs are dying one every other day in an increasingly acidic ocean and that burning fossil fuels is a major cause in their deaths. …

Climate damage confirmed to be serious, extensive via Ocean Acidification