Queensland's Great Heat Wave Increases Whispering Risk on the Great Barrier Reef

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"We have never seen such temperatures in November, so we do not know what conditions like this affect the reef in the early summer – and technically, it's not even summer."

One of the positives is that the sea surface temperature anomalies were not as significant as during the same period before mass coral bleaching in 2015-2016. This season has been one of the strongest events ever recorded in El Nino.

On the other hand, even though Pacific conditions were favorable for an El Nino, which usually leads to fewer cyclones in northern Australia and warmer summers, this event had not yet occurred.

The prospect that the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 fights killed the most sensitive corals, significantly reducing the risk of another mass whitening, also left survivors more robust, said Dr. Wachenfeld.

In the past, corals were likely to bleach if they resisted at a temperature of four weeks and began to die after eight hours. Such a gauge – based on the equivalent of one week of a degree of above-average conditions – indicates the thermal stress of corals, which encourages them to expel algae that provide them with water. Essential of their energy and their color.

"We do not anticipate that the thresholds we have seen in the past necessarily apply everywhere as strictly as they have been," Dr. Wachenfeld told the press. "It is therefore much harder to predict the future than a few years ago."

Unprecedented heat

Conditions have certainly been unprecedented on dry land, with places like Cairns, a popular reef visitor destination, shattering previous November temperature records by almost five degrees.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, in the short term, it is expected that unusually hot conditions will last for another week.

Climate change link

Although scientists can analyze climate change fingerprints in the current heat wave, Dr. Wachenfeld said the Great Barrier Reef had already warmed to about 0.9 degrees over the past 200 years. last years.

"If we continue on the global trajectory that we have followed, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, all the coral reefs of the planet will be plagued with enormous problems, and we will probably have them essentially lose before the end of the century, "he said.

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Mr Wachenfeld declined to comment on approvals supporting the development of the Galilee Giant Coal Basin in central Queensland, including Thursday's announcement that the Adani Carmichael mine could soon begin to be built.

"This is not the place for [the authority] to be able to comment on such decisions, but at the national and global levels, we need to embrace renewable energy, we need to move away from fossil fuels and find ways to reduce … emissions. "