Great Barrier Reef in Australia - coral bleaching increases in latest report

                      Aerial survey  (c) Great Barrier Marine Park Authority

The lastest surveillance report on Australia's Great Barrier Reef confirms the ongoing damage to the reef through increased temperatures as a result of climate change. Of particular alarm has been the repeated events of bleaching which now number 4 in seven years. The expected relief from a change in weather systems to La Nina did not occur and a mass bleaching resulted. This prolonged heat exposure is occuring across the wider reef system. 

The latest reef snapshot report published this month (May 2022) describes the current situation in clear terms which are not easily disputed -

• A total of 719 reefs were surveyed from the air between the Torres Strait and the Capricorn Bunker Group in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Of these 654 reefs (91 per cent) exhibited some fomr of bleaching and a significant core of the central reef had severe or extreme bleaching. 
• Coral bleaching seen from the air is largely consistent with the spatial distribution of heat stress accumulation with a larger proportion of coral cover bleached on reefs that were exposed to the highest accumulated heat stress this last Summer (late 2021 and early 2022)
• The waters around the Great Barrier Reef exceeded historical summer maximums for the hottest summer months with three distinct heat waves increasing thermal stress throughout the Central and Northern Great Barrier Reef.
• The 2022 Aerial Survey Map [shown above] illustrates the variation in bleaching observed across the reef in the second half of March. The aerial surveys were conducted by trained observers from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

The full report can be accessed at this link: Great Barrier Reef Snapshot Report 2022