SINGAPORE - The decline in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living structure, is accelerating, exacerbated by record sea temperatures, a leading coral scientist has concluded after an extensive aerial survey.
Prof Hughes and a colleague from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages the 2,300km reef along the Queensland coast, carried out the survey during the last two weeks of March. They inspected 1,036 reefs in a small plane flying about 150m above the ocean surface, recording the various degrees of bleaching suffered by reef-building corals.
This year, February had the highest monthly sea surface temperatures ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef since the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's records began in 1900. The warm temperatures continued into March, adding further heat stress for corals. If the marine heatwave lasts several weeks or more, some corals die. Others can recover but it can take months.
"The Great Barrier Reef is in rapid decline. The mix of species is rapidly changing, there is a loss of biodiversity. It is clear evidence of the threat of global warming to a huge tourism industry that employs 65,000 people," he told The Straits Times on Monday .
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