Great Barrier Reef bleached

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said on Friday they had discovered widespread damage at the UNESCO World Heritage site.

According to Euronews, aerial photography has confirmed that widespread coral bleaching is occurring on the Great Barrier Reef. This is the fifth time in the last eight years that scientists have observed widespread destruction on the reef.

“The findings are consistent with what we have observed: sea surface temperatures above average across the marine park for an extended period of time,” says Reef Management Chief Scientist Dr Roger Beeden.

Massive bleaching events are a modern phenomenon, AIMS says, caused by warming oceans due to climate change. Bleaching occurs when corals, under stress such as extreme heat, shed algae that provide them with nutrients and give them color.

Previous similar cases occurred in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2022. There had been no evidence of such widespread bleaching before in the 500-year history of the Great Barrier Reef’s corals.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral system, stretching over 2,300 km on 320 reefs off the northeast coast of Australia.