Saving coral reefs: Climate engineering to the rescue

Washington: A new study has indicated that geoengineering of the climate may be the only way to save coral reefs from mass bleaching.

According to the study conducted at University of Exeter, mass coral bleaching, which can lead to coral mortality, is predicted to occur far more frequently over the coming decades, due to the stress exerted by higher seawater temperatures.

The collaborative new research has suggested that a geoengineering technique called Solar Radiation Management (SRM) reduces the risk of global severe bleaching.

The SRM method involves injecting gas into the stratosphere, forming microscopic particles which reflect some of the sun's energy and so help limit rising sea surface temperature.

The study compared a hypothetical SRM geoengineering scenario to the most aggressive future CO2 reduction strategy considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and found that coral reefs fared much better under geoengineering despite increasing ocean acidification.

Professor Peter Cox, co-author of the research and from the University of Exeter said that coral reefs face a dire situation regardless of how intensively society decarbonises the economy and in reality there is no direct choice between conventional mitigation and climate engineering but this study shows that they need to either accept that the loss of a large percentage of the world's reefs is inevitable or start thinking beyond conventional mitigation of CO2 emissions.