Great Barrier Reef coral halved in 27 years
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail CNTV, October 10, 2012
I wonder whether other countries are also experiencing similar travel rush during the time of year, say, in Australia. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system.
|
|
|
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system. But in the past 27 years it has lost more than half its coral cover. |
But in the past 27 years it has lost more than half its coral cover. And it’s declining faster than ever. A study shows that coral cover could fall to just 5 percent in a decade.
The world’s largest coral reef is under threat...Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, or AIMS, said Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its coral in little more than a generation. The pace of damage has picked up since 2006 and if the trend continues, coral cover could halve again by 2022, with the southern and central areas most affected.
Globally, reefs are being assailed by myriad threats, particularly rising sea temperatures, increased ocean acidity and more powerful storms, but the threat to the Great Barrier Reef is even more pronounced according to the the AIMS study.
AIMS scientists studied data from more than 200 individual reefs off the Queensland coast covering the period 1985-2012. They found cyclone damage caused nearly half the losses, crown-of-thorns starfish more than 40 percent and coral bleaching from spikes in sea temperatures 10 percent.
Ordinarily, reefs can recover within 10 to 20 years from storms, bleachings or starfish attacks but climate change impacts slow this down. People are worried that the fragile reef might finally disappear one day.
Located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia, the Great Barrier Reef is the world’s biggest single structure made by living organisms. It can be seen from outer space. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)