There has been a “unprecedented” mass bleaching event on the western coast of Australia, scientists said Wednesday, turning huge fragments of a famous reef system of a sick and boring target.
A one -month marine heat wave had “cooked” the extensive reef of any, said the scientist of the Kate Quigley ocean, part of a sea park on the world heritage list, famous for vibrant corals and sharks of migratory whales.
Although the Environmental officials were still verifying the damage scale, the data collected by Quigley and a team of scientists discovered that it was on the way to the worst mass money laundering event in years.
“The warm oceans just cook the corals this year,” Quigley told AFP.
“It would not be bad to throw the word ‘unprecedented’.
“He has deepened, it is not just the upper part of the reef that is bleaching. Many different species of coral are bleaching.”
It is branched through shallow waters along the western coast of Australia, the reef none of 300 kilometers is one of the largest “reefs” in the world.
The massive bleaching that takes place seemed to be the worst since 2011, Quigley said.
The oceanic waters of Western Australia have been up to three warmer degrees than the average during the last summer months, the government’s weather office said.
Growing temperatures went out of the “laundering threshold” at some point in mid -January, according to the monitoring of the National National and Atmospheric Administration of the United States.
Blankeo occurs when warm waters trigger a biological response that forces Coral to expel colorful algae embedded in their tissues.
“Mainlight is a disease, but it does not mean direct death,” said Quigley, a research scientist at the foundation of Minderoo centered on the environment. “But it is quite bad, the corals will die.”
‘Simply shocking’
Government data showed that smaller patches of coral laundering had also been seen at the north end of the most famous barrier reef on the east coast of Australia.
Quigley said that the reef of none and the great Arrecife barrier were formed by different climatic patterns, and it was rare to see the bleaching in both at the same time.
“What we are seeing is that the level of ocean heating is so good that it cancels local conditions in some places.
“It’s simply shocking. When we take a national snapshot, it’s extremely worrying.”
The great barrier of Barrera, a popular tourist card, has suffered five mass degrees in the last eight years.
Quigley said that the reach of damage to the great reef barrier was not extended enough to be considered “mass bleach.”
The average global temperatures were the most popular recorded in 2024, with prolonged heat waves in many of the oceans of the planet that cause alarm.
A prolonged global heat -related bleaching episode impacted almost 80 percent of the world’s coral reefs between 2023 and 2024, a leading scientific agency in October found in October.
The heating of seas, overfishing and pollution threatens coral reef systems worldwide, warned an important UN report in December.
The average sea temperature around Australia was the “highest registered” in 2024, a study by the National University of Australia reported last week.
Australia is found in bulky deposits of coal, gas, metals and minerals, with mining and fossil fuels that fell decades of almost unknown economic growth.
But more and more more intense heat waves, forest fires and drought, that scientists have linked to climate change.
