Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its third coral bleaching event in just five years.
Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its third coral bleaching event in just five years. The 2020 bleaching is severe, and more widespread than earlier events.
“We surveyed 1,036 reefs from the air during the last two weeks in March, to measure the extent and severity of coral bleaching throughout the Barrier Reef region,” said Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
“For the first time, severe bleaching has struck all three regions of the Great Barrier Reef – the northern, central and now large parts of the southern sectors,” Prof Hughes said.
Coral bleaching at regional scales is caused by thermal stress due to spikes in sea temperatures during unusually hot summers. The first recorded mass bleaching event along the Great Barrier Reef occurred in 1998, then the hottest year on record. Four more mass bleaching events have occurred since—as more temperature records were broken—in 2002, 2016, 2017, and now in 2020.
Read more at ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Image: Bleached reef at Kepples, QLD, Australia in March 2020. (Credit: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies)
