US EditionGreat Barrier Reef Records Largest Annual Coral Loss in 39 Years (Business)
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA, AUG 6 – The Great Barrier Reef lost up to 33% of live coral in some regions in 2024 due to climate-driven heat stress, tropical cyclones, and starfish outbreaks, Australian authorities reported.
- In 2024, Australian authorities reported that the Great Barrier Reef underwent its most significant yearly decline in live coral cover over nearly four decades of monitoring.
- This coral loss occurred amid a widespread bleaching crisis that began in early 2023 and was officially recognized as a global emergency by April 2024, driven by unprecedented heat affecting 84% of coral reefs worldwide.
- Surveys showed living coral cover shrank by nearly a third in the south, a quarter in the north, and 14% in the central reef within 12 months despite some recovery since 2017.
- Mike Emslie, who oversees long-term monitoring at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, noted that the rising occurrence of coral bleaching events is causing significant harm to the Great Barrier Reef.
- The unprecedented coral loss suggests that back-to-back bleaching events may have caused researchers to underestimate climate risks to reefs, with coral abundance potentially near zero at many locations if warming continues.
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18 Articles
Great Barrier Reef suffers record coral loss despite recent gains, scientists find
A sharp bleaching event stripped away up to one-third of the reef’s living coral last year, even after a run of recovery since 2017.Rod McGuirk reports for The Associated Press.In short:The Australian Institute of Marine Science’s 2025 survey shows live coral cover fell 14% to 33% across the reef’s central, northern, and southern regions within 12 months.Heat-driven bleaching in 2024 triggered the biggest single-year decline in the 39-year monit…
The Great Barrier Reef Suffers Its Greatest Historical Decline Due to Climate Change and Overfishing
The Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure in the world and World Heritage Site by UNESCO, has suffered its greatest coral decline since records have been kept,...
Great Barrier Reef records largest annual coral loss in 39 years (Business)
The Great Barrier Reef has experienced its greatest annual loss of live coral across most of its expanse in four decades of record-keeping, Australian authorities say. But due to increasing coral cover since 2017, the coral deaths - caused mainly by bleaching last year associated with climate change...
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