Healthy reefs can recover from bleaching events if they have enough time. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered five mass bleaching events since 1997.
Fairfax Media via Getty Images— The Great Barrier Reef has again been hit with"widespread" bleaching, authorities said Friday, as higher-than-average ocean temperatures off Australia's northeast threaten the already struggling World Heritage site.
Over the past week, sea temperatures throughout the marine park ranged between a-half and two degrees Celsius above average, while the far north and inshore areas recorded temperatures between two and four degrees above average. Bleaching occurs when healthy corals become stressed by spikes in ocean temperatures, causing them to expel algae living in their tissues, draining them of their vibrant colors.
"It shows the consistent pressure our reef is now under from global heating," the society's campaign manager Lissa Schindler said. The measures are believed to have arrested the pace of decline, but much of the world's largest reef system has already been damaged.
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