Reef Scientist Doesn't Share Queensland Minister's View On GBR Bleaching - Still Too Early
A coral scientist has warned that early official optimism that the Great Barrier Reef will be spared the worst of a predicted worldwide coral bleaching event is misplaced.
The Queensland minister for the environment and the reef, Steven Miles, announced on Thursday that signs of only minor damage through the Australian summer to date had raised hopes the reef would not fall victim to its third major bleaching episode in two decades.
More than 200 surveys of the reef – which stretches 2,300km along the Queensland coast – had not detected “any significant bleaching” despite warmer than average sea temperatures, Miles said.
Miles said this was encouraging given the worst effects of heat stress on corals were predicted to soon wane in line with the El Niño weather system. “We’re not out of the woods yet but I am crossing my fingers that we will not see any broadscale bleaching events like those that endangered the reef in 1998 and 2002 and an intense event in the southern part of the reef in 2006,” he said.
However, Terry Hughes from James Cook University’s ARC Centre of Excellence said it was “basically too early in the season for bleaching to happen”. “[The minister] is being a little bit optimistic to say ‘so far, so good’ because it wouldn’t happen now anyway,” Hughes said. The risk of major bleaching event would likely present when temperatures peaked “March into April” – more so in the event of heatwave and less likely by if cooling monsoons or a cyclone swept the north Queensland coast, he said.
EDIT
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/28/optimism-over-great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-too-early-says-academic