Australia's spectacular Great Barrier Reef is suffering mass bleaching as corals lose their color under the stress of warmer seas, in a blow blamed on climate change.
The largest coral reef system in the world, stretching for more than 2,300 kilometers along the northeast coast of Australia, is showing the harmful effects of the heat.
It said in a report that aerial surveys detected coral bleaching at multiple reefs across a large area of the system.
The Great Barrier Reef, home to some 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusk, was suffering despite the cooling effect of the La Nina weather phenomenon.
The area is home to about 2,500 individual reefs and more than 900 islands.
If conditions become more moderate, bleached corals can recover.
Weather patterns over the next couple of weeks continue to be critical in determining the extent and severity of coral bleaching across the Marine Park.
Four days after the United Nations began a monitoring mission to assess whether the World Heritage site is being protected from climate change, a mass bleaching report emerged.
The World Heritage Committee will consider listing the Great Barrier Reef as "in danger" in June if the Australian government doesn't do enough to address threats.
The beloved, vibrant colors of the Great Barrier Reef are being replaced by white coral.
He pressed the government to show the damaged areas to the UN mission, rather than the untouched areas.
If the government is genuine about letting the UN mission form a comprehensive picture of the state of the Reef, then it must take the mission to the northern and central Reef.
Corals are being cooked by temperatures up to four degrees above average, which is particularly alarming during a La Nina year when ocean temperatures are cooler.
The decision of the World Heritage Committee to not list the Great Barrier Reef as being in danger last July surprised many.
Australia created a plan to protect the reef after the UN threatened to change the World Heritage listing.
The world's oceans reached record high temperatures last year, according to the Climate Council's chief executive.
She said that as more severe bleaching is reported across our beloved Great Barrier Reef, we can see these devastating events are becoming more common under the continuing high rate of greenhouse gas emissions.
To give our Reef a chance, we need to deal with climate change. No amount of funding will stop these events unless we reduce emissions.
Even if global warming is capped within the Paris Agreement, coral reefs that anchor a quarter of marine wildlife and the livelihoods of more than half a billion people will most likely be wiped out.
More than 99% of the world's coral reefs are unable to recover from increasingly frequent marine heatwaves if an average increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is taken into account.
According to the study, mortality will be 100 percent at two degrees of warming.
The stark reality is that there is no safe limit of global warming for coral reefs, according to the lead author.
The frontline of climate change is still too warm at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The Paris Agreement requires nearly 200 nations to keep global heating well below 2 degrees Celsius.
Agence France-Presse
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