Great Barrier Reef facing back to back coral bleaching from elevated sea surface temperatures

Record sea surface temperatures in the coral sea are again threatening massive coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef for the second year in a row. If sea surface temperatures don't cool in the next few weeks, this will be the first time there has been back to back bleaching on this scale.

“In the last week, divers and scientists have reported bleached corals on popular tourist reefs around Cairns and on reefs near Townsville.” said Imogen Zethoven Australian Marine Conservation Society Great Barrier Reef Campaign Director.

Vast swathes of the Great Barrier Reef have also been placed on red alert (Alert Level 1) for the next four weeks, as an indicator that coral bleaching is likely. Parts of the Far Northern, Northern and Central Reef are on the even higher Alert Level 2, indicating mortality is likely.

Corals south of Cairns, in the Whitsundays and in parts of the Far Northern Reef, that were badly hit last year, are at mortal risk.

Love in the Time of Coral Reefs

A powerful song by singer songwriter Ruth Mundy - Love in the Time of Coral Reefs

Thank you Ruth. It made me cry, and it made me angry.

Human induced Ocean warming and ocean acidification have doomed coral reef ecosystems and the Great Barrier Reef.

Politicians offer token #ausvotes funding to Great Barrier Reef facing extinction. It is a climate emergency

We need to come to terms that the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem and coral reef ecosystems globally as we know them, are facing extinction. It is a climate emergency. The reef is our canary in a coalmine and it is now dying from the greenhouse gases we have released.

Early surveys of the Great Barrier Reef showed that 93 percent of reefs were affected by coral bleaching. Scientists have been undertaking extensive aerial and underwater surveys since then to refine these initial survey results. Scientists from the Coral Reef Centre of Excellence are now reporting that over 35 percent of coral north of Cairns in the northern and central regions are now dead or dying.

The impact of coral bleaching changes dramatically from north to south along the 2300km length of the Reef.

“We found on average, that 35% of the corals are now dead or dying on 84 reefs that we surveyed along the northern and central sections of the Great Barrier Reef, between Townsville and Papua New Guinea,” says Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (JCU).

“Some reefs are in much better shape, especially from Cairns southwards, where the average mortality is estimated at only 5%. This year is the third time in 18 years that the Great Barrier Reef has experienced mass bleaching due to global warming, and the current event is much more extreme than we’ve measured before."

“These three events have all occurred while global temperatures have risen by just 1 degree C above the pre-industrial period. We’re rapidly running out of time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” concluded Terry Hughes.

Guest Post: Great Barrier Reef bleaching would be almost impossible without climate change

I have followed climate change and marine science for about 10 years. This latest climate attribution research by Australian climate scientists shows clearly that the massive coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef would not have occurred without human caused climate change. It is attribution climate science done in near real time. Cutting edge stuff.

The researchers also dispel arguments that this coral bleaching event was due to the strong El Nino this year, but primarily long term temperature warming of oceans. It underlines that coral reef ecosystems face a bleak future with coral bleaching events from warm waters being a regular occurrence in as little as 20 years time.

Read and weep, and then focus your anger on the intransigence of many politicians, first in denial then, like Environment Minister Greg Hunt who pay lip service and make nominal commitments, while supporting the agents of greenhouse gas emissions in approving the massive Adani Carmichael Coal mine.

Great Barrier Reef bleaching would be almost impossible without climate change

Andrew King, University of Melbourne; David Karoly, University of Melbourne; Mitchell Black, University of Melbourne; Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, The University of Queensland, and Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, UNSW Australia

Attenborough on the Great Barrier Reef, sea level rise and climate change

Did you watch the first part of David Attenborough's documentary on the Great Barrier Reef?

This is a remarkable documentary with filming ending just as the reef was undergoing massive coral bleaching due to exceptionally warm waters caused by climate change. This is the third global coral reef bleaching event on record.

Attenborough first visited and documented the reef 60 years ago. Part one of the three part series contains an allegorical story from the Cairns area about sea level rise from the aboriginal dreamtime.

The Great Barrier Reef, geologically speaking, is a relatively recent phenomena. Sea levels were 70 to 90 metres lower during the Ice Age period with a narrow and steep shoreline where the east coast of Australia fell sharply to deeper waters. Sea levels started to rise at the end of the last ice age about 14,000 years ago.

Massive coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef while Environment Minister applies bandaid funding

There have been many reports of extensive coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Here are the sea surface temperature anomaly for the 14 day period to 1st March 2016, as provided by BOM's Reeftemp application. Unusual and extensive ocean warming has extended down the eastern Australian coast.



Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Tyrone Ridgway in an article at The Conversation identify that "The bleaching is currently focused on the pristine reefs north of Cooktown, driven by water temperatures that have persisted at 1.0-1.5℃ above seasonal averages since mid to late January 2016, and calm and still weather conditions over recent weeks."

Coral reef ecosystems acidifying 3 times faster than open ocean

New research shows that the rate of ocean acidification in coral reef ecosystems is more than three times faster than in the open ocean, much more than previously thought. This has big implications for reef ecosystems around the globe suffering under multiple stressers of increased sea surface temperatures, nutrient and other pollution and commercial fishing pressures.

Biogeochemist researchers from Southern Cross University Led by recent graduate Dr Tyler Cyronak detailed this new insight in a study published in Geophysical Research Letters titled Enhanced coral reef acidification driven by regional biogeochemical feedbacks.

Ocean acidification is well documented in open waters. Cold waters like in the southern ocean can more readily absorb carbon dioxide, so ocean acidification was thought to be proceeding more rapidly in marine ecosystems in cooler waters (see my 2007 article: Scientists say Ocean Acidity Increasing at Faster Rate)

This new research highlights that coral reef waters are also rapidly acidifying. This research examined studies done in coral reefs since the 1960s and found that the rate of acidification in coral reef ecosystems was more than three times faster than in the open ocean.

Marine heatwaves continue decimating corals in the Pilbara

Marine heatwaves are having a marked impact on coral reef systems off the Pilbara coast. A CSIRO and University of Western Australia study in progress found bleaching and decimation of ancient porite corals - many up to 400 years old - in a recent visit to Barrow Island. The oceans around Australia were unusually warm in 2013. Globally the deep oceans are also continuing to warm.

“We suspect this bleaching event was due to marine heatwaves that occurred in the region over the past few summers, and to see it up close was sobering,” said Dr Russ Babcock, CSIRO lead scientist, “But to offset this loss, some reefs only a short distance north showed much less damage and will continue to contribute to a healthy ecosystem."

A marine heatwave extreme bleaching event ocurred in 2011 that was widely spread along the Western Australian coast. Preliminary results from the study show that further damage was done in the 2012-2013 summer with elevated water temperatures.

ExClimate: Experiment shows coral reefs in peril in a high CO2 world

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg takes us through and explains a controlled experiment his Institute is conducting in coral reef ecosystem reaction to various temperature and carbon dioxide environments.

Hoegh-Guldberg is Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and an important authority on tropical marine biology, coral reef ecosystems and climate change.

He argues that Coral Reef ecosystems have already changed significantly from pre-industrial times, and will change even further as human carbon emissions increase in the atmosphere with many species likely to be pushed to extinction due to heat stress and ocean acidification from anthropogenic climate change.

China's coral reef ecosystems suffer devastating 80 per cent decline

In the last 30 years the coral reef ecosystems off the coast of mainland China and Hainan Island have suffered an 80 per cent decline largely due to unrestrained economic development driving coastal development, pollution and overfishing.

The study, published in the journal Conservation Biology - The Wicked Problem of China's Disappearing Coral Reefs - was conducted jointly by scientists from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University, and from the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"A wicked problem is one that is very hard to solve without having a whole lot of other foreseen and unforeseen consequences to people, industries and to the environment itself," said lead author Professor Terry Hughes.

Global Warming imperils coral reefs: 2 degrees warming is too hot say scientists

Increasing sea surface temperatures are imperilling coral reef ecosystems say scientists. A new scientific paper with extensive modelling reveals that atmospheric warming of 2 degrees celsius is too much for nearly all the world's coral reef ecosystems. They argue that to preserve greater than 10 per cent of coral reefs worldwide would require limiting global warming to below 1.5 °C. This equates to the goal of reducing carbon in the atmosphere to 350ppm, rather than a 2 degree rise or 450ppm that the UN Framwework Convention on Climate Change has adopted as the safe limit at several meetings. Atmospheric concentration of CO2 currently stands at 392.41ppm.

Sea Cucumber poo moderates impact of ocean acidification on coral reefs

Ocean acidification is a major threat to coral reefs and other marine zooplankton and creatures using calcium carbonate shells. Marine and Climate scientists working at the University of Sydney's research station, One Tree Island, on the Great Barrier Reef have discovered that sea cucumber poo increases the alkalinity of the reef water providing a buffer to the increasing acidity caused by ocean acidification.

It is a vital marine process that provides some buffer to corals with the impacts of ocean acidification. "We have found that sea cucumbers play a vital role in reducing the harmful impact of ocean acidification on coral growth," said Professor Maria Byrne, the director of One Tree Island Research Station.

Oceans at high risk of unprecedented Marine extinction scientists warn

A report issued last week from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) has strongly warned of the damage to the health of the world's oceans and marine life and that if the current business as usual trajectory of damage continues "that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history."


Dr. Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of IPSO and Professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, gives the overview of the main problems affecting the ocean — and some suggested solutions.

Related: International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) | The Ocean in a high CO2 world | Frontline - World's oceans in crisis: What can be done?

Queensland climate becoming more extreme according to coral reef record

The Queensland climate is becoming more extreme with more frequent rain and drought events since the nineteenth century according to research on coral reef cores published in the scientific journal, Paleoceanography by Dr Janice Lough from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in April 2011.

Queensland Climate Change Minister spins Climate Destruction of Great Barrier Reef

In December Kate Jones, the Queensland Climate Change Minister, stated "Queenslanders are by per capita the highest emitters of carbon in the world." and said the Queensland Government was "committed to world action on climate change." Spoken at the Copenhagen climate talks on December 15, they illuminate the greenwashing, spin and hypocrisy that our politicians are engaging in.

"We as a State are already taking action. We are home to the world's largest reef, the Great Barrier Reef, and that is why we are committing here today to reduce runoff into the reef by 50% in four years." she stated to the crowd of climate bureaucrats and fellow politicians.

Bradley Smith from Friends of the Earth Brisbane said that "If the Queensland government were serious about protecting the Great Barrier reef, they wouldn't be expanding the coal industry. Without deep and urgent emissions reductions, reducing runoff to the Great Barrier Reef is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

Scientist: Extinction threatens Coral Reefs unless CO2 limited to 350ppm

COPENHAGEN. Dec 9, 2009. Extinction of Coral reefs and 10-20% of marine species is likely if greehouse gases aren't brought down to 350ppm, warned Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland. He gave a presentation at the US Pavilion at the COP15 climate negotiations in Copenhagen about the threat of climate change to the world's coral reefs. Over 500 million people living in approximately 90 nations are dependant in some way on coral reefs.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was a contributing author to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2007, which shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore.

Marine Scientists call for climate action over Ocean Warming and Acidification

A Marine Climate Change reportcard released by Australian Scientists has warned that: ocean temperatures have warmed; the flow of the East Australian Current has strengthened, and will likely increase a further 20% by 2100; Marine biodiversity is changing in south-east Australia in response; and declines of over 10% in growth rates of massive corals on the Great Barrier Reef are likely due to ocean acidification and thermal stress.

This reportcard is the first-ever Australian benchmark of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems and options for adaptation. The report identifies key adaption measures but emphasises the needd for "immediate and vigorous international diplomacy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

"The objective of compiling this information is to consider options available to environmental and resource managers in their response to changes in ecosystem balance," said project leader, CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship scientist Dr Elvira Poloczanska.

"On both sides of the continent there is clear evidence of ocean warming and this is already bringing sub-tropical species south into temperate waters, and in the case of the giant kelp forests in Tasmania, appears to be having a severe impact in just a few years."

Scientists call for emissions slashed to save Great Barrier Reef

Marine and climate scientists have called for at least a 25% cut in carbon emissions from developed countries like Australia to save the Great Barrier Reef. A 25% cut in emissions would amount to peaking at less than 450ppm atmospheric CO2 and a 50/50 chance of staying below 2 degrees Centigrade. And by 2050, emissions would have to decline by up to 90 percent below 2000 levels. Even with this scenario tropical reefs may be substantially degraded.

Related: Marine Scientists report: Ocean Acidification Accelerating; Severe Damages Imminent | Coral Reefs and Ocean Biodiversity threatened by Climate Change | Climate Change: Marine Scientists Demand Action on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Coral Reefs and Ocean Biodiversity threatened by Climate Change

Australian marine scientists have issued a warning on the increasing acidity of the world's oceans and its impact on coral reefs, and through the food web, the productivity and biodiversity of oceans. There has been an unprecedented decline in coral growth since 1990 caused by a combination of rising sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. At the current rate of decline, coral will be unable to grow by 2050, scientists warn.