Great Barrier Reef hit in 'devastating' fourth global coral bleaching event

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It's only the fourth global bleaching ever recorded but the second in the past ten years.

Scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Watch declared the mass event on Monday .READ MORE:A file photo taken in October 2016 showing coral bleahcing in the Great Barrier Reef. Three-quarters of the reef is now bleached.

The organisation said mass coral bleaching had been detected all across the globe since early last year, including in reefs off the coasts of Mexico, US, Brazil, the Middle East, Fiji, Vanuatu and much of Africa. "Recent visits to sites in the southern and northern sections of the Great Barrier Reef reveal a common story: the reef is now experiencing its fifth mass bleaching and mortality event in just nine years," the university's Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

The NOAA warned that the bleaching would have major economic impacts as well as the more obvious environmental consequences.

 

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