The bleaching event appears likely to be the worst on record in southern sections of the 1,400-mile-long reef, and could bring the first significant coral fatalities observed there. And in other regions, what is the fifth major bleaching event within nine years could serve as a test of how resilient the world wonder will be going forward.
“Those records have now been broken,” Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said in an interview.
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Seven months after Florida corals faced what [scientists called their worst bleaching event ever](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/26/florida-coral-reef-ocean-temperatures-heat/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2), a similar emergency grips the Great Barrier Reef: Its famed corals are under unprecedented and in some spots fatal stress as relentless summer heat in Australia stretches into early fall.
The bleaching event appears likely to be the worst on record in southern sections of the 1,400-mile-long reef, and could bring the first significant coral fatalities observed there. And in other regions, what is the fifth major bleaching event within nine years could serve as a test of how resilient the world wonder will be going forward.
Water temperature data suggests the toll could approach that of 2016, [when some 30 percent of the reef’s corals died](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/20/and-then-we-wept-scientists-say-93-percent-of-the-great-barrier-reef-now-bleached/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5) after suffering through what were then unprecedented levels of heat stress.
“Those records have now been broken,” Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said in an interview.
It is the latest symptom of off-the-charts levels of ocean heat around the world. While the oceans have steadily absorbed rising levels of global heat for decades, [a record-setting spike in global ocean temperatures](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/28/ocean-temperature-maps-heat-records/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9) that [was first observed last spring](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/14/record-warm-ocean-temperatures/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9) has persisted for over a year.
**Read more:** [**https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/13/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/13/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
When are people going to get over this thing is going to die?
What bothered me a lot was that NOAA bleaching alert prediction did not forecast this in [mid feb 2024](https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleachingoutlook_cfs/weekly_webpage/weekly_60_icwk20240211.php) even as it seemed obvious this was bound to happen this year: back then oceans were much warmer than prior bleaching years & usually they keep warming till mid march.