Breaking: Concerns rise for Great Barrier Reef health as corals start to bleach
Corals in the far north of the Great Barrier Reef have started to bleach, leaving the federal government's lead reef agency at a state of "heightened alert" about the prospect of a mass bleaching event unfolding over the next two to four weeks.
The current forecasts for the next few weeks "are giving us a heightened risk of a mass bleaching event", he said, adding the threat may peak in the second week of March or later.While the arrival of widespread rain, thunderstorms or a cyclone could disrupt that build-up of heat, meteorologists are not predicting any major weather event, Dr Wachenfeld said.
Dr Wachenfeld said corals would typically start bleaching at about 30-50 degree-heating days, and would begin to die at 50-70 such days. If temperatures remain at about 3 degrees above average, those regions would accumulate 21 degree-heating days per week.While it is too early to declare specific areas to be as risk, inshore reefs in the central and southern parts of the Great Barrier are now accumulating heat stress at a rapid rate.
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