"Researchers say coral analysis shows recent extreme temperatures would not have happened without greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels"
"Ocean temperatures in the Great Barrier Reef are now the hottest in at least 400 years and are an “existential threat” to the planet’s unique natural wonder, according to new scientific research.
Scientists analysed long-lived corals in and around the reef that keep a record of temperature hidden in their skeleton and matched them to modern observations.
The research, published in the prestigious journal Nature, used climate models to find the extreme temperatures of recent decades could not have happened without the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused mostly by burning fossil fuels.
The “existential threat” to the reef from the climate crisis was “now realised”, the scientists wrote, and without ambitious and rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions “we will likely be witness to the demise of one of the Earth’s natural wonders.”"
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