Lethal consequences: climate change impacts on the Great Barrier Reef
The ‘Lethal Consequences: Climate Change Impacts on the Great Barrier Reef,’ report shows the future survival of coral reefs around the world, including the Great Barrier Reef, depends on how deeply and swiftly greenhouse gas pollution levels are slashed over the coming years and decades. Accelerating climate change has driven a 54 per cent increase in the number of marine heatwave days each year (between 1925-1954 and 1987-2016), placing global reefs at serious risk. The unprecedented bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017 resulted in mass coral mortality, with the 2016 bleaching event at least 175 times more likely to occur due to intensifying climate change.