A fifth mass coral bleaching event in just eight years is spreading along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, marking a deterioration in the world’s largest coral system under the effects of global warming. The managing authority reports that aerial reconnaissance of the ecosystem, which extends 2,300 km off the continent’s northeast coast, has revealed that two-thirds of the coral reefs show signs of bleaching, attributable to a heat wave in the sea waters.
According to the Authority, the measurements confirmed “extensive and rather uniform” bleaching in all regions of the reef, along a distance of over 1,100 km. Environmentalists fear another mass bleaching is unfolding, following those that occurred in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2022.
Bleaching occurs when the water remains unusually warm for several weeks, stressing the corals, which expel the algae that live with them in symbiosis, affecting their ability to reproduce. A phenomenon also reported on other coral reefs around the world in the last 12 months.
“We were able to observe bleached corals even at depth,” reports Neal Cantin, a researcher at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS), who participated in the surveys. “The thermal stress caused by this underwater heat wave, which continues to accumulate across the southern region of the ocean, is concerning,” he added.
Australian Marine Conservation Society head Lissa Aschlinder reiterated that governments must accelerate emissions reductions to save coral reefs. “This is a serious wake-up call for Australia and the global community that we need to do a lot more more to contain climate change,” he said.
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