The world’s largest coral reef, the Great Barrier Reef on the west coast of Australia, has been struggling for many years.
This year’s summer in the southern hemisphere has been disastrous for the coral reef, writes CNN.
In April, the American monitoring body National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that a “massive, global bleaching” of coral reefs in the world’s oceans is now taking place.
This is the fourth time this has occurred since 1990. At least 53 countries have been affected, writes CNN.
– What is happening to our oceans is like forest fires under water, says the Australian researcher Kate Quigley to the channel.
Warming of the oceans is a driving force behind coral death.
– It will be so hot that we will reach a tipping point. Then there is no going back, says the researcher.
FADE: The corals lose their characteristic colours. Photo: DAVID GRAY / AFP / NTB
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– Feels wrong
Scientists tell the New Zealand Herald that the corals they sample smell rotten and are sticky.
– It looks wrong. It feels wrong, says Stephanie Gardner at the research station One Tre Island to the newspaper.
Gardner recounts that she burst into tears while diving among the dead coral.
– It was incredibly difficult to go out on the first day. We dived maybe ten times and I collapsed three times. “Seeing coral like that, dying, is just horrible,” says Gardner.
