Global Warming

Great Barrier Roof – Mass Coral Bleaching Event

Australia’s spectacular Great Barrier Reef is suffering “mass bleaching” as corals lose their colour under the stress of warmer seas, authorities said on Friday, the event widely blamed on climate change.

The world’s largest coral reef system, stretching for more than 2 300 kilometres along the northeast coast of Australia, is showing the effects of the heat, said the Reef Authority.

Aerial surveys showed coral bleaching at multiple reefs across a large area of the system, “confirming a mass bleaching event, the fourth since 2016,” it said in a report.

Large Ice Shelf Collapses in Antarctica

An ice shelf the size of New York City (460 square miles) has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said Friday.

The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had an ice shelf collapse. It happened at the beginning of a freakish warm spell last week when temperatures soared more than 70 degrees warmer than normal in some spots of East Antarctica. Satellite photos show the area had been shrinking rapidly the last couple of years, and now scientists say they wonder if they have been overestimating East Antarctica’s stability and resistance to global warming that has been melting ice rapidly on the smaller western side and the vulnerable peninsula.

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