{"id":61663,"date":"2025-08-12T04:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T04:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/61663\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T04:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T04:31:08","slug":"wa-suffers-worst-coral-bleaching-on-record-after-severe-marine-heatwave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/61663\/","title":{"rendered":"WA suffers worst coral bleaching on record after severe marine heatwave"},"content":{"rendered":"

A prolonged marine heatwave has caused the worst coral bleaching event on record for Western Australia, according to a new report.<\/p>\n

The Australian Institute of Marine Science \ufeffconfirmed mass coral bleaching and deaths in up to 1500km of coastline across the entire state, from Ashmore to the Ningaloo Reef.<\/p>\n

But scientists warned that it would still take months to understand the full extent of the event.<\/p>\n

\"AA prolonged marine heatwave has caused the worst coral bleaching event on record for Western Australia. (\u00a9 AIMS | Declan Stick)<\/p>\n

“A bleached coral is not a dead coral \u2014 it can recover,” coral scientist Nicole Ryan said.<\/p>\n

“For some coral species, it can take time after bleaching for it to recover or die.”<\/p>\n

Scientists began monitoring a marine heatwave in September, which only continued to intensify for the next eight months.<\/p>\n

Heat stress peaked in December and January, dipped \ufeffslightly before peaking again in March and April.<\/p>\n

Temperatures only began to drop in May.<\/p>\n

During that period, all reefs experienced a combined 15 weeks of sea temperatures at least one degree above the historic maximum.<\/p>\n

Some reefs in the Pilbara felt up to 30 weeks of the increased water temperature.<\/p>\n

Corals begin to die after eight weeks of heat stress. \ufeff<\/p>\n

\"AThe reef at Rowley Shoals before bleaching. (\u00a9 AIMS | James Gilmour)\"AThe reef at Rowley Shoals after bleaching. (\u00a9 AIMS | James Gilmour)<\/p>\n

The Australian Institute of Marine Science found it was the “longest, largest and most intense” marine heatwave on record for the state.<\/p>\n

The \ufeffheat stress is believed to beat records set during the 2011 La Nina and the 2016 El Nino on most reefs.<\/p>\n

Senior research scientist James Gilmour said climate change had finally caught up to reefs and parts of the coast that had never been bleached before.<\/p>\n

“The length and intensity of the heat stress, and its footprint across multiple regions, is something we’ve never seen before on most of the reefs in WA,” he said. \ufeff<\/p>\n

Gilmour said it was a concerning time for coral reefs in Australia, \ufeffwith the Great Barrier Reef also experiencing an extended mass bleaching.<\/p>\n

“Climate change is driving these events, which are becoming more frequent, more intense and more widespread, giving our amazing, valuable coral reefs little time to recover,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And they need 10 to 15 years to recover fully.”<\/p>\n

\"AGilmour said it was a concerning time for coral reefs in Australia. (\u00a9 AIMS | Declan Stick)<\/p>\n

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, global oceans experienced their warmest year on record last year.<\/p>\n

Sea surface temperatures in and around Australia were the warmest since records began in 1900.\ufeff<\/p>\n

“The increased frequency of extreme and record-breaking ocean temperatures is associated with global warming,” \ufeffthe Bureau of Meteorology Seasonal and Marine Applications team leader Claire Spillman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prolonged marine heatwave has caused the worst coral bleaching event on record for Western Australia, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-61663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}