coral bleaching great barrier reef

The Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its most widespread coral bleaching event, according to scientists who say record warm temperatures and warming oceans are threatening its fragile corals. This makes me feel sad because I love the Great Barrier Reef. Climate change is the biggest threat to our Great Barrier Reef. Ed Roberts / Coral Reef Studies. CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Great Barrier Reef is facing a critical period of heat stress over the coming weeks following the most widespread coral bleaching the natural wonder has ever endured, scientists said Friday. It would be easy to write it off and not pay much attention to it since coral reefs only populate a tiny fraction of the ocean, but that’s a very bad idea. The Reef needs our help while there’s still time. This week, “The Grey Matter” in question is not in fact the brain but the bleached corals of the Great Barrier Reef. It can be seen in the picture that an extensive area of coral is bleached at the same time and this has a widespread effect on the creatures that live in the coral. Coral reefs have a chance to recover from bleaching but when the bleaching is as vast as the one shown in the picture, the chances of recovery are very slim. The Great Barrier Reef has experienced two major bleaching events in recent decades, in the summers of 1998 and 2002 when, respectively, 42% and 54% of reefs were affected by bleaching. Coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef, are being affected by bleaching at an alarming rate. CANBERRA, Australia -- The Great Barrier Reef is facing a critical period of heat stress over the coming weeks following the most widespread coral bleaching … Read more about Professor Marshall's research or Coral Watch.. Transcript. Severe bleaching events have been recorded previously on the Great Barrier Reef in 1998 and 2002. David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the government agency that manages the coral expanse […] Coral bleaching is a global crisis, caused by increased ocean temperatures driven by carbon pollution. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has witnessed some of the worst mass bleaching events in history. A study measuring the extent of coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef is branding some of the northern reef's problem as "extreme." The intensity of coral bleaching increases as temperatures become hotter. Kirsten: Hi, I'm Kirsten MacGregor and you're listening to ‘A Grey Matter’.The neuroscience podcast from the Queensland Brain Institute. During such events in 2016 and 2017, the Great Barrier Reef lost as much as half its corals, scientists have estimated. Coral bleaching is the ghostly face of climate change. Bleached coral in the Great Barrier Reef. The southern portion of the Great Barrier Reef, which largely escaped the major coral bleaching events of 2016 and 2017, is unlikely to be spared this time. The Great Barrier Reef is facing the 'most extensive' and potentially devastating coral bleaching event following unusually warm recent ocean temperatures, experts warn. The 2015–2016 event resulted in the bleaching of more than half of all the coral in the Great Barrier Reef. Gorgeous, delicate coral reefs are home to millions of fish and fundamental to our own survival.