‘An Underwater Bushfire’: Major Coral Bleaching Event in Northern Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

In the past eight years, the Great Barrier Reef — the largest coral reef in the world, stretching 1,429 miles — has experienced five mass bleaching events, tied by scientists to climate change.

Most recently, corals around six islands in Turtle Group National Park, located about 6.2 miles off Australia’s Queensland Coast, have seen extensive bleaching, according to scientists from James Cook University, as reported by Reuters.

“It was quite devastating to see just how much bleaching there was, particularly in the shallows… (but) they were all still at the stage of bleaching where they could still recover as long as the water temperatures decline in time,” Maya Srinivasan, lead researcher of the survey, told Reuters.

Warming sea surface temperatures cause corals to expel the beneficial, colorful algae that live in them while providing them with food, causing the corals to turn white. If ocean waters cool in time, bleached corals may recover, but if temperatures stay elevated long enough, the corals will die.

The researchers carried out aerial surveys of more than 300 reefs and found that most had “prevalent shallow water coral bleaching,” CNN reported. According to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, ongoing surveys in the water that can gauge the depth and severity of bleaching were also being conducted.

“We now need to combine the spatial coverage captured from the air with in-water surveys to assess the severity of coral bleaching in deeper reef habitats across the different regions of the Marine Park,” said Dr. Neal Cantin, Australian Institute of Marine Science senior research scientist, as reported by The Guardian.

Srinivasan said data collected from the six Turtle Group islands would be used in an ongoing analysis of the ways in which corals are impacted by bleaching, floods and cyclones, Reuters reported.

“The Reef has demonstrated its capacity to recover from previous coral bleaching events, severe tropical cyclones, and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks,” the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said, as reported by CNN.

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The Australian Climate Council, an independent climate change communication organization, said the Great Barrier Reef’s sudden shifts point to larger risks for the UNESCO World Heritage Site, according to Reuters.

“With climate change where there’s predictions that these sorts of disturbance events will become more frequent and be of higher intensity… it’s becoming even more crucial than ever to have these long-term monitoring programs continue into the future,” Srinivasan added.

Simon Bradshaw, Climate Council’s research director, described the current bleaching event as “an underwater bushfire.”

“Climate change is the biggest risk not just to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia but also to coral reefs around the world,” said Tanya Plibersek, Australia’s environment minister, as CNN reported. “We know that we need to give our beautiful reef the best chance of survival for the planet and animals that call it home, for the 64,000 people whose livelihoods depend on reef tourism.”