Coral bleaching has killed one-third of parts of Great Barrier Reef

Scientists' announcement comes just days after the Department of Environment omitted the Great Barrier Reef from a UN report about climate change's effects. 

|
Centre for Marine Studies, The University of Queensland, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg/AP
Fish swim along bleached coral near the Keppel Islands in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Coral bleaching has destroyed 35 percent of the northern and central Great Barrier Reef.
|
Art Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Map of mortality estimates on coral reefs along 1100km of the Great Barrier Reef.

Coral bleaching has destroyed at least one-third of the northern and central Great Barrier Reef, Australian scientists said Monday, days after reports that officials instructed the United Nations to omit the country from a report about climate change's impact on world heritage sites.

Mass bleaching has killed 35 percent of the coral in northern and central parts of the 1,600-mile Great Barrier Reef, the largest living organism on the planet, according to estimates from the Australian Research Council's (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

The percentage jumps to more than 50 percent near Cooktown, in the central part of the reef, researchers found after surveying 84 reefs. While 95 percent of the reefs in the southern part of the ecosystem survived the bleaching event, it remains the worst to have ever been observed.

James Cook University professor Terry Hughes, director for the Centre of Excellence, said he was "gobsmacked" by the scale of bleaching, which he called much worse than the other two major bleaching events in 1998 and 2002.

"It is fair to say we were all caught by surprise," Dr. Hughes told The Sydney Morning Herald. "It's a huge wake up call because we all thought that coral bleaching was something that happened in the Pacific or the Caribbean which are closer to the epicenter of El Nino events," which increase sea temperatures in the Pacific and Caribbean. 

As the water warms, the coral expels the zooxanthellae algae that symbiotically live with it and provide it with nutrients and its radiant colors. Without the algae, the coral calcifies and turns white. If the waters cool, and the coral is bleached only mildly, algae can return. If the water remains warm, the coral can die.

The 2015-16 El Nino, one of the strongest ever, certainly contributed to the mass die-off of parts of the reef. But scientists say the main culprit is climate change. In fact, researchers found in April that the 1.5 degree Celsius the ocean has warmed since 1900 is mostly due to human activity. 

But Australian officials have been reluctant to address the toll of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as on the country's Kakadu and Tasmanian forests. The country's Department of Environment cut its section from a recent UN report on climate change's toll on World Heritage sites, including the Great Barrier Reef, to avoid "confusion" – and a cut to tourism dollars.

"Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of World Heritage properties impacted on tourism," a Department spokesperson told reporters. 

The Great Barrier Reef attracts about $3.59 billion in tourism every year.

In light of the ARC's most recent report, however, UNESCO may reconsider its decision not to put the World Heritage sites on its endangered list, reported Reuters Monday.

Climate and coral reef scientists have been vocal about their disapproval of the country's climate change attitude, although the government has pledged to address coral bleaching in other ways. Environment Minister Greg Hunt will allocate an additional $50 million on top of the Department's $11 million budget to improve the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef, The Sydney Morning Herald reported last month. The funds will support clean-up efforts against sediment, nitrogen, and pesticides.  

Improving water quality could improve the resiliency of the reef, and strengthen its ability to recover. But that's only if water temperatures cool, climate analysts caution. 

"The key threat to the Great Barrier Reef is climate change – the government has recognised that many times," Hughes told The Sydney Morning Herald. But there is a "disconnect in the policy round governments issuing permits for 60 years for new coal mines and how that might impact on the Great Barrier Reef and reefs more generally," he said. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Coral bleaching has killed one-third of parts of Great Barrier Reef
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0530/Coral-bleaching-has-killed-one-third-of-parts-of-Great-Barrier-Reef
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe