Huge coral extinction threatens Highest water temperature for 400 years on the Great Barrier Reef
Rising water temperatures can lead to mass bleaching of corals. (archive image)
Image: dpa
The Great Barrier Reef was last affected by coral bleaching in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024. (archive image)
Image: dpa
Rising water temperatures can lead to mass bleaching of corals. (archive image)
Image: dpa
The Great Barrier Reef was last affected by coral bleaching in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024. (archive image)
Image: dpa
Corals can't run away. If water temperatures rise, they become extremely stressed or even die. This poses an acute threat to the Great Barrier Reef.
07.08.2024, 20:45
07.08.2024, 21:22
dpa
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- The water temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef in Australia have reached a new high.
- This increases the risk of mass bleaching and coral deaths in Australia's natural wonder.
- In March this year, the fifth mass bleaching event in eight years was confirmed on the Great Barrier Reef.
The water temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef in Australia have reached a new high: according to an Australian research team, it has never been as warm there in the past 400 years as it has been this year. The warming can be attributed to human influences, the team writes in the journal "Nature".
The researchers led by Benjamin Henley from the University of Melbourne in Australia reconstructed the sea surface temperatures from 1618 to 1995 using coral skeletons from the reef and compared them with the recorded sea surface temperature data from 1900 to 2024.
According to the study, water temperatures were relatively stable before 1900. The study shows that there was a steady increase from 1960 to 2024: an average warming of 0.12 degrees per decade was measured in the period from January to March.
Nevertheless, as the authors note, there are also uncertainties in the reconstructed temperature data from before 1900. Some of the chemical proportions in the corals used to model the temperatures may have been influenced by other variables such as salinity. However, with additional sampling of coral cores from the region, these uncertainties could be reduced.
Five mass bleaching events in eight years
As water temperatures rise due to global warming, so does the risk of mass bleaching and coral deaths in Australia's natural wonders. Mass coral bleaching was first observed in 1980 and has increased in frequency in recent years.
In March this year, the Great Barrier Reef, which is home to a diverse ecological network, confirmed its fifth mass bleaching event in eight years. The researchers show that in the years of the most recent mass bleaching events (2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024), the average January to March was significantly warmer than in any year of the reconstruction before 1900.
"Without rapid, coordinated and ambitious global action to combat climate change, we are likely to witness the demise of one of Earth's great natural wonders," the team writes.
The scientists point out that 70 to 90 percent of the world's corals are likely to be lost - even if global warming is kept below the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius. In addition, future coral reefs would probably have a different community structure with a lower diversity of coral species.