600 Miles Of Bleaching On GBR; Worst Heatwave Ever Observed On West Coast Reefs

Australia’s two world heritage-listed reefs – Ningaloo on the west coast and the Great Barrier Reef on the east – have been hit simultaneously by coral bleaching that reef experts have called “heartbreaking” and “a profoundly distressing moment”. Teams of scientists on both coasts have been monitoring and tracking the heat stress and bleaching extending across thousands of kilometres of marine habitat, which is likely to have been driven by global heating.

On the Great Barrier Reef, bleaching is being detected from around Townsville to the tip of Cape York, a distance of about 1,000km. On Western Australia’s famous Ningaloo reef, waters have accumulated the highest amount of heat stress on record during an extended marine heatwave that has hit coral reefs all along the state’s vast coastline.

Paul Gamblin, the chief executive of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said history would “record this profoundly distressing moment” when two world famous reefs both suffered widespread damage at the same time.

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Dr Emily Howells, a coral scientist from Southern Cross University who has been at the Australian Museum’s research station on Lizard island since February, said this was now the sixth summer in a row that bleaching had been seen there. The island, in the north of the reef, was badly hit by bleaching last summer and scientists at Aims who visited in subsequent months said the area had lost one-third of its live corals due to the heat. Howells said there was less coral mortality this year, “but that’s because a lot of the sensitive corals died last summer”. “There just isn’t enough opportunity for these coral communities to bounce back. It’s heartbreaking,” she said.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/23/ningaloo-and-great-barrier-reef-hit-by-profoundly-distressing-simultaneous-coral-bleaching-events