Unprecedented episodes of coral bleaching spread to 84% of the world’s coral reefs in a crisis caused by unfolding humans that could kill essential ecological belts. Scientists warned Wednesday.
Since it began in early 2023, Global Coral Bleaching The event became the largest and most intense impact on coral reefs across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans.
Corals have transformed ghostly white under heat stress, and the world’s oceans have been driven by the release of greenhouse gases that have warmed farmland over the past two years, warming to historic highs.
Coral reefs can rebound from trauma, but scientists told AFP that ocean temperatures remain higher for longer, resulting in shorter windows for recovery.
Conditions in some areas were so extreme that they “returned to multiple or almost complete deaths of the coral reef,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
This latest episode was so serious and lasting that even more resilient corals succumbed, said Melanie Mcfield, of the Healthy People Initiative, a Caribbean specialist.
“If you keep a heat wave after a heat wave, it’s hard to see how that recovery will happen,” a veteran leaf scientist told AFP in Florida.
Bleaching occurs when corals expel not only their distinctive colour, but also algae that provide food and nutrients, expose them to disease and ultimately death.
Live coral cover has been halved since the 1950s due to climate change and environmental damage, the International Coral Reef Initiative and global conservation partnership. He said in a statement Wednesday.
Scientists predict that 1.5°C warming could cause around 70-90% of the world’s coral reefs to disappear. This is a tragic outlook for people and the planet.
Coral reefs support hundreds of millions of people living in coastal communities around the world by providing food, storm protection and livelihoods through fishing and tourism, as well as marine life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkpyn6ypcoy frameborder = “0 ” Alow =”accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard wide;encrypted media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture;web-share “referrpolicy =” strict-origin-when-cross-origin “approakfullscreen =” approakfullscreen”>
Coral crisis
Massive coral bleaching was first observed in the early 1980s and is one of the most famous and most visible results of the steady rise in ocean temperatures caused by global warming.
The latest Coral Bleaching Event is the fourth and largest event in a decade and the second, surpassing the record area that was affected in the last episode of 2014-2017.
“From January 1, 2023 to April 20, 2025, bleached levels of heat stress affected 83.7% of the world’s coral reef regions,” NOAA It was mentioned in the latest update on monday.
The ocean stores 90% of the excess heat caused by the burning of human fossil fuels, causing warm ocean temperatures, the main cause of coral bleaching.
“The relationship between fossil fuel emissions and coral mortality is both directly and undeniable,” says Alex Sen Gupta, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The event forced NOAA to add three new levels to the widely used bleach alert scale to accurately address the increased risk of death in large quantities of corals.
“This is the equivalent of adding Categories 6 and 7 to the tropical cyclone scale,” Sen Gupta said.
happy #earthday! 🌎 Today we are celebrating #coralreefs Because they provide important habitat for marine species, are food sources for over 500 million people, and provide protection from storms and surges. https://t.co/rwhds6onnt
– NOAA Coral Program (@noaacoral) April 22, 2025
“Major deaths”
Mcfield said in September 2023 that the iconic coral reef off Honduras suffered from bleaching, but still boasts an average living coral compensation of 46%.
“By February 2024, all of them had died and 5% of them were living corals. I had never seen any of these massive fatalities,” McField said.
According to EU climate monitor Copernicus, the planet is already at least 1.36 degrees higher than its pre-industrial era.
Scientists predict that the 1.5°C threshold will be exceeded early in the next decade.
At 2°C, almost all the corals disappear.
If all governments’ current climate policies are fully implemented, the world can warm up to 3.1°C by 2100.
©Agence France-Presse
