Future loss of local-scale thermal refugia in coral reef ecosystems

Coral reefs in every region of the world are threatened by climate change, no matter how remote or well protected. Identifying and protecting climate refugia is a popular recommendation for coral reef management. Climate refugia are locations that maintain suitable environmental conditions for a resident species even when surrounding areas become inhospitable.

This paper shows that climate change will overwhelm current local-scale refugia, with declines in global thermal refugia from 84% of global coral reef pixels in the present-day climate to 0.2% at 1.5˚C, and 0% at 2.0˚C of global warming