PUBLIC LECTURE: The Future of Coral Reefs in a Rapidly Increasing CO2 World

Join the Royal Society Fellow, Professor Malcolm McCulloch, as he discusses the sensitivity of coral reefs to the threats of global climate change, as well as the direct human impacts degrading their local marine environment. Malcolm talks about how rapidly rising levels of atmospheric CO2 is driving ocean acidification, a process that has the potential to cause substantial and still largely uncertain impacts on coral reefs and marine ecosystems generally. Follow him as he examines the argument that the most immediate and severe threats to coral reefs are those from local disturbances caused by human activity, often leading to a largely irreversible shift from coral to algal dominated ecosystems. Using long-term records preserved in coral cores, Malcolm shows how it is possible to decipher the dual impacts of global climate and local environmental changes, and addresses the need to optimise the resilience of coral reefs given the now inevitable impacts of a rapidly changing climate.