Ocean acidification, warming water temperatures, pollution and overfishing pose dire threats to coral reefs worldwide.
Suspects include microbes, sewage, storm drains, fertilizer runoffs, warming water and even a natural tidal shift.
The safety argument "is likely solid and justified," he wrote in an e-mail, but "it is tough to argue (rationally) that warming water conditions are unforeseen".
They are vulnerable to warming water, ocean acidification due to CO2 absorption, overfishing, pollution from prawn farms and damage to reefs.
Although warming water is the most immediate agent of oceanic chaos, it's just one front in climate change's three-pronged assault on marine life.
But anyone who's ever tried to boil water on a stove is aware of another effect of warming water: It expands.
It is a strange mix, like the cooling air masses and warming water vapors that cause the fog that last week sat atop the valley like foam on a cappuccino.
Woodgate, who has been investigating climate change's impact on the Arctic, tracked much of the heat entering the area to ocean currents carrying warming water from the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Warming water will make it hard for many of the reef's corals to survive, while the acidification of the oceans will hinder the ability of remaining corals to form their skeletons.
