Global warming continues to affect the Great Barrier Reef, triggering warmer temperatures, warmer water, and, thus coral bleaching. The bleaching event is explained by scientists as an algae loss which affects approximately 900 miles area of the Great Barrier Reef. Specialists have established that the biggest latest damage was located in the middle section while the bleaching event from last year destroyed the north part of the reef.
- Global warming still triggers unusually warm temperatures which cause coral bleaching.
- Researchers have performed an aircraft survey to establish the damages.
- A central third of the reef was severely affected by climate two years in a row.
Scientists believe that these two coral bleaching events will annihilate almost all chances for corals to recover. Prof. Terry Hughes at the James Cook University stated that governments need to reinforce their efforts on eradicating climate change to prevent other bleaching events and save the reef. Prof. Hughes reported that since 1998 up to this point, there were four similar events in which the reef was damaged, but the gap between these events varied considerably.
Unfortunately, this is known to be the shortest gap between bleaching events ever known. Prof. Hughes argued that the sooner authorities and environmentalists act upon deterring global greenhouse gas emissions and we start using alternative energy, giving up the use of fossil fuels, the better. The recent findings indicated that only the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef was still safe, but no untouched by bleaching.
Dr. James Kerry, another researcher, pointed out that this is damage is outrageous. He stated that the central third of the reef was as affected as the northern third of the coral reef was last year. The reefs which were damaged two years in a row, the problem reached to be extremely severe because they are dying off. Being hit by coral bleaching two years, one after the other did not give them the chance to recover.
After an aircraft survey of 5,000 miles above the Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, scientists were able to determine on April 9 that warm waters have caused a terrible bleaching event, destroying massive coral swaths. Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Queensland, who also reported other previous findings, stated that the central sector of the reef had been severely damaged again this year. Warm waters affect corals by triggering a “mass exodus of photosynthetic algae from their cells.”
Image courtesy of: wikipedia
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