At Island Of Doubt, James Hrynshyn recounts a recently released study about the alarming rate at which global warming is killing off the world's coral reefs (bold emphasis his):
The authors selected 845 species of reef-building corals, discarded 141 on which the data were insufficient, and took a look at the conservation status of the rest.Of the remaining 704 species, 231 are listed in the threatened categories, while 407 are in threatened and Near Threatened categories combined .... The only species that do not fall within threatened categories are those that inhabit deeper, lower reef slopes and those not solely dependent on reef habitats.That is truly frightening. And before someone objects that the threatened and near-threatened labels are less worrisome than "endangered" or "critically endangered," or that the Earth has seen mass coral extinctions before, the really disturbing trend is not the fact that a third of all corals are in trouble, but the speed at which corals are being added to the lists of species at risk.Our results indicate that the extinction risk of corals has increased dramatically over the past decade. Using the values from previous reports of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, it is possible to determine extinction risk levels prior to the 1998 massive bleaching events. Before 1998, 671 of the 704 data-sufficient species would have been categorized as of Least Concern, 20 as Near Threatened and only 13 included in threatened categories.