Barrier Reef hit in fourth-ever global coral bleaching event

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A global coral bleaching event has been declared as reefs around the world, including the Great Barrier Reef, suffer from the impact of the warming climate.

Scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch declared the mass event on Monday (US time, Tuesday AEST).

It’s only the fourth global bleaching ever recorded, but the second in the past ten years.

“From February 2023 to April 2024, significant coral bleaching has been documented in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres of each major ocean basin,” NOAA Coral Reef Watch coordinator Derek Manzello said.

The organisation said mass coral bleaching had been detected all across the globe since early last year, including in reefs off the coasts of Mexico, US, Brazil, the Middle East, Fiji, Vanuatu and much of Africa.

It also pointed to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, 75 per cent of which has been bleached, the Marine Park Authority said earlier this month.

The University of Queensland said the situation was “devastating” and “dire and developing rapidly”.

“Recent visits to sites in the southern and northern sections of the Great Barrier Reef reveal a common story: the reef is now experiencing its fifth mass bleaching and mortality event in just nine years,” the university’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

“Reports are coming in thick and fast, making it clear that this is no ‘ordinary event’. It was the most widespread event on the Great Barrier Reef ever.”

The NOAA warned that the bleaching would have major economic impacts as well as the more obvious environmental consequences.

“As the world’s oceans continue to warm, coral bleaching is becoming more frequent and severe,” Manzello said.

“When these events are sufficiently severe or prolonged, they can cause coral mortality, which hurts the people who depend on the coral reefs for their livelihoods.”