The Natural History Museum has put on display a bit of fossilised coral reef discovered in what is now Wiltshire. It's a pretty thing.
;)
The museum tells us that the fossil is 160 million years old and that some of the species included are relatives of those alive today, an observation that seems to have important implications for global warming alarmism:
The corals lived during the Late Jurassic period, at a time when carbon dioxide levels were higher than they are now, in seas that were warmer than today. This suggests they are capable of surviving in a warmer world.
Another "fragile" ecosystem turns out to be rather robust it would seem. But not so fast:
However, the current plight of corals worldwide due to changing ocean conditions suggests they may not be able to survive the current pace of climate change.
This is an odd thing to say because I thought everyone agreed that the climate has changed much faster in the past. Indeed these very corals seem to have survived the extraordinarily fast climate changes in the last glacial period, which may have been of the order of 10 degrees in a few decades. The plight of corals in the present is of course more to do with overfishing and pollution than climate change.