Climate change forces world’s coral reefs to undergo fourth global mass bleaching event

This is the second global coral bleaching event in 10 years due to warming oceans.

Transcript

00:00 Scientists are warning that rising ocean temperatures are causing potentially devastating harm to

00:05 delicate coral reefs around the world. An international research group says coral bleaching

00:10 has occurred in the waters of at least 53 countries, including Australia's Great Barrier

00:15 Reef. It happens when coral becomes stressed because of rising sea temperatures.

00:20 The climate projections predict that every coral reef on the planet is going to experience

00:24 bleaching every year sometime between 2040 and 2050. And that's based on the rate of

00:28 warming we're seeing right now. Now, what makes this so alarming for everybody is just

00:34 the scale in terms of the magnitude of the heat stress that we're seeing. So this, you

00:39 know, the severe nature of just how hot the oceans are and have been now for, you know,

00:45 over a year is really unprecedented in any record that we have. So I would say people

00:51 are very, very alarmed.

00:56 It's the second such major event in recent years. Coral can recover from bleaching, but

01:01 if it's severe, long-lasting entire reefs can die, a disaster for all marine life dependent

01:06 on them.

01:09 (whooshing)