Over half of world’s coral reefs are bleached, ‘irreversible’ damage warned: study

A new study recently released found more than half the world’s coral reefs are bleached due to ocean warming.

Data from more than 15,000 reefs globally analyzed by a team of scientists over a three-year period found 51% of the world’s reefs sustained “moderate or worse bleaching” while 15% experienced “significant mortality.”

“Ocean warming is increasing the frequency, extent, and severity of tropical-coral bleaching and mortality,” researchers, including C. Mark Eakin, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote in the new report published on Feb. 10.

Dubbed the “Third Global Bleaching Event,” scientists reported their findings from 2014 to 2017 that show the impacts of ocean warming on coral reefs are increasing, with “the near certainty that ongoing warming will cause large-scale, possibly irreversible, degradation of these essential ecosystems.”

The extensive bleaching and heat stress stretches across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, NOAA previously reported.

“With heat stress levels during this event surpassing those observed previously, (NOAA) developed more extreme Bleaching Alert levels that are now being used during the ongoing Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event,” the report reads.

“And yet, reefs are currently experiencing an even more severe Fourth Event, which started in early 2023,” while the Pacific coastline of Panama experienced worse heat stress and coral death, corresponding author Sean R. Connolly with the College of Science and Engineering at James Cook University, said.