| Description: |
Scientists modeled the skeletal growth of a dominant reef-building coral, Porites, as a function of seawater chemistry and validated the model against observational data. They show that ocean acidification (OA) directly and negatively affects one component of the two-step growth process (density) but not the other (linear extension). Combining their growth model with Global Climate Model output, they show that skeletal density of Porites corals could decline by up to 20.3% over the 21st century solely due to OA. [Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]
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