Action delayed: Even a 2^oC rise above the pre-industrial levels would lead to 20-40 per cent of the Amazon dying within 100 years, said climate change experts from the UK. The study will appear in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Declining corals: The number of fish in the Caribbean reefs has dropped since 1995 due to significant loss of corals, said a study published in the journal Current Biology. After examining data from 48 different studies of 318 reefs across the Caribbean, from 1955 to 2007, the research found an 80 per cent reduction in coral cover since the mid 1970s and drastic changes in coral reef habitats over the past 30 years. This decrease was evident in both large species, targeted by fishers, as well as small ones, that were not targeted, suggesting that over-fishing was not the only cause.