Great barrier reef map5/5/2023 ![]() It is actually not a true barrier reef as defined by the 'classic' coral reef formation and originally described by Charles Darwin in the 1800's. The Great Barrier Reef is not one reef but a chain of over 2,000 reefs located anywhere from 10 to 150 miles off the northeastern coast of the territory of Queensland in Australia - extending some 1,250 miles from north to south. (Both maps from the Australian Tourist Commission) The Great Barrier Reef is a chain of reefs along the coastline ranging from a few miles to over 150 miles from the shore (right). It is the largest biological structure on Earth and one of the only naturally occurring structures that can be seen by satellite.Īustralia's northeast coastline is where the Great Barrier Reef is located (shadowed in blue on the left). One of Earth's wonders - the Great Barrier Reef - is located off the northeastern side of Australia. The continent of Australia, in the southern hemisphere, is about as big as the entire United States. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is an immense and very unique coral reef. “Coral reefs don’t stand much of a chance on the trajectory we’re currently on.Australia is in the southern hemisphere. ![]() “We really need to limit warming to 1.5 degrees or less,” Eakin says. The international pact calls for containing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, a threshold that could save at least some of the world’s corals from a bleak, bleached future. “If it takes decades for reefs to recover even under the best conditions, and bleaching events become more and more frequent, it doesn’t necessarily give reefs time to recover.”Īnd if carbon emissions continue unabated, Eakin warns, temperatures will continue to rise, threatening coral reefs worldwide with increasingly intense, frequent bleaching.Įakin notes, however, that the UN’s ambitious Paris Agreement could help, if it were immediately and boldly implemented. “By the middle of the 21st century, we’re going to be seeing mild bleaching on most reefs around the world,” says Eakin. ![]() What’s more, the raised temperatures make El Niño warming events-even those too weak to be designated official El Niños-all the more dangerous. The problem, Eakin says, is that climate change has warmed baseline ocean temperatures, which increases the frequency of warming events severe enough to cause bleaching. Most troublingly, the Great Barrier Reef’s current suffering represents a fraction of a much broader regional epidemic: Corals have been bleaching continuously across the Pacific Ocean since mid-2014, as warm waters have assailed reefs from American Samoa to Kiribati and French Polynesia. “When bleaching is this severe it affects almost all coral species, including old, slow-growing corals that once lost will take decades or longer to return,” he says. In some areas, the final death toll probably will exceed 90 percent, says Andrew Baird of Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in a press release. Researchers have yet to finalize the corals’ death tolls, but early estimates suggest that in the northern Great Barrier Reef, about half of the bleached corals are dying. “Having such a large area of the affected this severely by bleaching, especially in the northernmost region, where the corals are least affected by local human impact, is very troubling.” “It’s extremely depressing,” says Mark Eakin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch program. What’s more, the UNESCO World Heritage site is a tourism powerhouse, supporting about 70,000 jobs and pumping more than five billion dollars into the Australian economy. The Great Barrier Reef is home to more than 1,500 species of fish, six of the world’s seven marine turtle species, and 30 species of whales and dolphins. The Great Barrier Reef’s southern half has mostly avoided severe damage.Įven now, it’s clear that the fallout will be tremendous. What’s more, between 60 to 100 percent of corals were bleached on 316 reefs, many in the remote, pristine northern half of the reef. Of the 911 individual reefs that researchers surveyed, a whopping 93 percent-843 reefs-experienced some form of bleaching. The Great Barrier Reef is made up of 2,900 smaller reefs. ![]() Kicking out the algae turns the coral bone white and potentially sets it on a path to starvation. The temperatures cause corals’ symbiotic algae-their crucial food source-to short-circuit and become toxic, forcing the corals to expel it. The bleaching is caused by abnormally hot waters warmed by El Niño and climate change. ![]()
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