The goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees could be exceeded by the end of the decade. Coral sponges are fundamental for the functioning of coral reefs and have a calcareous skeleton in which all climate changes are recorded.
Researchers led by Malcolm McCulloch then collected samples in the eastern Caribbean to reconstruct the climate history of the last 300 years. Data obtained suggest that warming linked to human activities began as early as the mid-1860s, about 80 years earlier than what the measurements made on the sea surface using instruments show.