The corals of the Great Barrier Reef have been cut in half:

In the past 25 years, the well-known Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of all its corals, according to a new study.

Researchers at the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, among other things, have studied the sizes of different corals and how they have grown in the years between 1995 and 2017.

They found that large, medium and small corals on the reef off Australia have more than halved over the years, according to The Guardian.

The coral reef has been a tourist magnet for a long time. Both because of the size, the different species of fish and the colors of the corals. The study has led researchers, again, to have to go out and warn that the coral reef will become unrecognizable, if greenhouse gases are not reduced.

Very worried

According to Terry Hughes, one of the researchers behind the study, there was a massive bleaching of the coral reef in 2016 and 2017 because the temperature in the sea was record high. It should also be mentioned that since this study has only looked at the years between 1995 and 2017, it does not imply a violent bleaching of the coral reef earlier this year.

Coral bleaching occurs, among other things, when the sea becomes warmer than normal as a result of climate change. When this happens, several of the algae that live on the corals die and the coral animals themselves turn pale and die.

BLEACH: This is what it looks like when corals, which were once beautiful colors, have been bleached and killed. Photo: Mia Hoogenboom / AFP / NTB
see more

– I started monitoring coral reefs in 1995, and none of us had imagined what would happen in the following years. There have been five major bleaching episodes since then, and three of them have occurred in the past five years, Hughes told The Guardian.

He also says that he is very concerned that the time intervals between incidents have become so short lately.

Risks of losing a habitat

While it is serious for both corals of all sizes to bleach and die, the most serious thing is for the largest corals to die, according to Hughes. The chance that foxes can repair themselves is greatly diminished when the largest die.

The corals grow on top of each other and form new corals on top of the ones that are already there, so they can grow really big.

Attenborough’s sad warning: – A crisis

When large corals die, it is more difficult for foxes to rebuild.

In addition, it loses an entire habitat. Coral reefs are very productive ecosystems, according to Store Norske Leksikon. Due to the shape, many different organisms can live there, in addition to snails, clams, crabs, crustaceans, and many species of goldfish.

To save coral reefs we must, according to the study, be able to control the warming of our planet so that it does not exceed 2 degrees.