The Great Barrier Reef is TOO white.

Scientists discovered that only 68 out of 911 coral reefs were left untouched by the bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef. What the… is coral bleaching, right?!

A diver checks out the bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: XL Catlin Seaview Survey

Let me take a step back and define what coral bleaching is though before discussing the rest of the article.

When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. This is called coral bleaching. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality. If they do die, it takes decades for species of corals to restore. Professor Andrew Baird, from the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, stated north of Port Douglas, "we're already measuring close to 50 per cent mortality of bleached corals," but in the south, hope is alive and some corals will recover in months.

Mostly all of the corals found bleached were located in the northern region. Reefs in central and southern suffered mild effects but nothing as severe as the northern region. Professor Terry Hughes, convenor of the bleaching taskforce, claimed that this was by far the worst the Great Barrier Reef has gotten; he states, “We've never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it's like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once.”

What could cause something like this exactly?

Well, higher than average sea temperatures derived from the current of El Niño along with the already warmed oceans from climate change. Yikes! Not only was that the cause but these corals are only looking forward to more damage as the burning of coal mining from the Carmichael coal mine is being approved by the Queensland government.

But let me just end this on a final note, The Great Barrier Reef brings in $5 billion from tourism each year. Damn, that’s how beautiful it is, so lets try to keep it that way.