Global warming has changed the Great Barrier Reef ‘forever,’ scientists say
Two years after a long-lasting undersea heat wave scalded large sections of the Great Barrier Reef, scientists have found that because so many corals died, much of the reef has probably been altered “forever.”
“What we just experienced is one hell of a natural selection event,” said Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Queensland.
In a notably blunt study in the journal Nature — laden with words like “unprecedented,” “radical” and “catastrophic” — Hughes and 15 colleagues report that in 2016 alone, about 30 percent of the Great Barrier Reef’s corals were lost, with the most severe damage in the isolated northern sector. (In 2017, another ocean heat wave claimed another roughly 20 percent of corals, Hughes said.)
Gergely Torda ARC Centre of Excellence Coral Reef Studies