Severe coral bleaching north of Cairns

Coral bleaching due to global warming has continued to worsen in the northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR) over the past two weeks, even as cooler weather has brought significant reprieve to central and southern areas, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) reports.

"After months of El Nino conditions, we had hoped that cloudy weather in the past few weeks would quench the overheating of the Great Barrier Reef along its entire length," says Prof. Terry Hughes, Taskforce convener and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

"Unfortunately, the northern sectors have not cooled down enough, and we’re now recording quite extensive levels of coral bleaching. These northern reefs are in the most remote, pristine area of the Great Barrier Reef and it’s a real tragedy to see them being affected like this. Thankfully the rest of the reef is now safe as the summer heat dissipates."

The northern Great Barrier Reef stretches for roughly 1000km from the tip of Cape York to Cairns and covers the area that your boatsales' and IFISH crews recently fished (with incredible success) aboard Nomad Sportfishing for the filming of the IFISH Apprentice TV show to be released in November 2016.

"We’ll start flying extensive aerial surveys on charter planes to measure the extent of the bleaching. Similar aerial surveys were done during the two earlier mass bleaching events in 1998 and 2002, and a third set will provide invaluable information about which reefs are particularly at risk of bleaching," Prof. Hughes said.

Dr Neal Cantin, Research Scientist at AIMS, has been closely following weather and climate patterns over the Great Barrier Reef, said that "water temperatures on the Northern Great Barrier Reef for the next few weeks are likely to remain far above average and the corals continue to face a bleaching risk."

Based on the severity of bleaching reports from the northern GBR, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has lifted its bleaching warning from Response Level 1 (mild and widespread) to Response Level 2 (severe and local), especially in the Lizard Island area.

Severe impacts
Bleaching extends deeper than upper reef slope and:
>> Mortality of many (>50 per cent) colonies of taxa or morphologies usually highly sensitive to bleaching
>> Severe bleaching of most (>50 per cent) colonies of taxa or morphologies with low sensitivity to bleaching
>> Severe bleaching of many (10-50 per cent) colonies of taxa or morphologies with very low sensitivity to bleaching
Local
>> Impacts present in less than 10 sites within one region*

You can read all about the
GBRMPA Coral Bleaching Response Plan here.