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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.
"The take-home message of my coral reef research is that without serious, near-term efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to increase coral reef resilience, the world’s coral reefs will experience dangerously frequent mass bleaching events within decades. This won’t mean the extinction of all tropical reef corals – some hardy ecosystems and some hardy species will persist. However, the vast majority of the world’s coral reefs could become so physically and biologically degraded that they no longer perform their basic services like providing a home for reef fish and protecting shorelines from erosion."