Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering a mass bleaching event, the reef’s marine park authority confirmed Friday, the result of soaring ocean temperatures caused by the global climate crisis and amplified by El Niño.
This is the seventh mass bleaching event to hit the vast, ecologically important site and the fifth in only eight years.
Aerial surveys conducted by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Australian Institute of Marine Science spanned two-thirds of the marine park and confirmed “a widespread, often called mass, coral bleaching event is unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef.”
The unfolding bleaching event follows similar reports from coral reefs around the world during the past 12 months, the reef’s managers said.
Covering nearly 133,000 square miles (345,000 square kilometers), the Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef, home to more than 1,500 species of fish and 411 species of hard corals. It contributes billions of dollars to the Australian economy each year and is promoted heavily to foreign tourists as one of the country’s – and the world’s – greatest natural wonders.
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Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering a mass bleaching event, the reef’s marine park authority confirmed Friday, the result of soaring ocean temperatures caused by the global climate crisis and amplified by El Niño.
This is the seventh mass bleaching event to hit the vast, ecologically important site and the fifth in only eight years.
Aerial surveys conducted by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Australian Institute of Marine Science spanned two-thirds of the marine park and confirmed “a widespread, often called mass, coral bleaching event is unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef.”
The unfolding bleaching event follows similar reports from coral reefs around the world during the past 12 months, the reef’s managers said.
Covering nearly 133,000 square miles (345,000 square kilometers), the Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef, home to more than 1,500 species of fish and 411 species of hard corals. It contributes billions of dollars to the Australian economy each year and is promoted heavily to foreign tourists as one of the country’s – and the world’s – greatest natural wonders.
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We aren’t that far off from making the ocean uninhabitable for plankton, then it’ll get real interesting.