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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Goodbye, coral reefs [sciencemag.org]:

For the second year in a row, Australian marine scientists have carried out the sad task of surveying the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to determine the impact of widespread bleaching caused by elevated sea water temperatures. And for the second year in a row, the findings are grim: Severe bleaching occurred on many of the individual reefs in the middle third of the 2300–kilometer-long system, according to the aerial survey results released today.

In 2016, severe bleaching hit the northern third of the reef. Now, surveys show a significant number of reefs in the central GBR have been hit 2 years in a row. Because it takes at least a decade for a full recovery by the fastest growing corals, there is "zero prospect of recovery" for reefs hit in successive years, says James Kerry, a marine biologist at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.

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