Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is, it turns out, bleaching itself. Scientists flew along all 1,400 miles of the world’s largest coral reef system, and have estimated that around 93 per cent of it is now a pale white colour. Coral systems “bleach”, or expel nutrients and algae, when the water temperature is too high. And, as a result of an extra hot El Niño current this year – itself probably a result of global warming – the water is too warm.
So the brutal reality is: go see it now, if you ever want to see it, because the bleaching will likely kill off the reef and make life very hard for all the wildlife that lives in its ecosystem. This turtle, for example:
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