Climate Change Drives Severe Drop in Australia’s Coral Reefs

(MENAFN) Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has recorded its most severe annual drop in coral cover in nearly four decades, a new report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) revealed on Wednesday.

According to the study, two of the reef’s three monitored regions experienced their sharpest yearly declines in coral health in 39 years of tracking, largely as a result of climate change.

The primary cause of the widespread coral loss was identified as extreme heat events driven by global warming.

AIMS CEO Selina Stead highlighted the unprecedented scale of recent heat stress: “This year Western Australian reefs also experienced the worst heat stress on record. It's the first time we've seen a single bleaching event affect almost all the coral reefs in Australia.”

Stead further emphasized the escalating pattern of mass bleaching: “This was the second time in a decade that the Reef experienced mass bleaching in two consecutive years.”

“These results provide strong evidence that ocean warming, caused by climate change, continues to drive substantial and rapid impacts to Reef coral communities,” she stated.

Stead also emphasized that the survival of coral reefs hinges on cutting high greenhouse gas emissions, effectively managing local and regional stressors, and advancing strategies to help reefs adapt to the ongoing effects of climate change.

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