GREAT BARRIER REEF
The Great Barrier Reef is extremely fragile and it won’t last forever if we keep treating like now. For the last 27 years the Great Coral Reef has decreased half of its area and it's predicted that for the next 10 years it will only lasts a quarter from the original. All this biodiversity loss produced by natural factors is due to the overpopulation of a starfish that has eaten a huge part of the disappeared coral and also a big part of its extinction is caused by cyclones that had destroyed many parts of the coral reef in the last years.
Impacts.
As we have said, if the Great Coral Reef finally disappears, it would have terrible consequences for all the different living beings that live there because they will lose their house and their protection.
On the other hand, it would also lead to bigger waves that would cause problems to the coastline, because the Great Coral Reef protects the coastlines from huge waves and calms the currents of the ocean and makes that all the beaches and coastline cities have calmed waters
Also, the extinction of the Great Coral Reef would mean that to avoid the point that we have explained before, the government will have to spend a big quantity of money in replacing this natural Reef with an artificial one to protect the cities and coastline.
First of all, the Great Barrier Reef is being threatened by global warming, produced by humans, and if the amounts of carbon dioxide increase until 450 parts per million the corals reefs would be extremely endangered, but as for now, if it maintains in 370 parts per million or less, then coral reefs will be less affected and wouldn't disappear. Also, the acidification of oceans is making reduce the quantity of coral in the Great Barrier Reef, as the pH of the oceans keeps decreasing, this levels of acidification can dissolve the calcium carbonate that forms the coral reef, and that would mean that corals will disappear too.
As the ocean's temperature keeps increasing, this also leads to the extinction of these species and all the biodiversity that we can found in the Great Barrier Reef.
Corals are very fragile living beings, and they can feel the small changes and this small changes could lead them to the extinction and the loss of all the biodiversity that we can found there.
In this picture we can observe how sea temperature, ocean pH, sea level and cyclones and tropical storms have changed during the last years.