The Great Barrier Reef, battered but not broken by climate change impacts, inspires hope and worry alike as researchers race to understand how it can survive a warming world.
KONOMIE ISLAND, Australia — Below the turquoise waters off the coast of Australia is one of the world’s natural wonders, an underwater rainbow jungle teeming with life that scientists say is showing some of the clearest signs yet of climate change.
“This is a clear climate change signal. It’s going to happen again and again,” said Anne Hoggett, director of the Lizard Island Research Station, on the continuing damage to the reef from stronger storms and marine heat waves. “It’s going to be a rollercoaster.” Heat waves in recent years drove corals to expel countless tiny organisms that power the reefs through photosynthesis, causing branches to lose their color or “bleach.” Without these algae, corals don’t grow, can become brittle, and provide less for the nearly 9,000 reef-dependent species.
The first step in the government’s reef restoration plan is to understand better the enigmatic life cycle of the coral itself. One recent blustery afternoon, Carly Randall, who heads the Woppaburra Coral Project at AIMS, stood amidst buckets filled with coral specimens and experimental coral-planting technologies. She said the long-term plan is to grow “tens to hundreds of millions” of baby corals every year and plant them across the reef.Her colleagues at AIMS have successfully bred corals in a lab off-season, a crucial first step in being able to at scale introduce genetic adaptions like heat resistance.
The nation’s previous prime minister, Scott Morrison, was a conservative who was chided for minimizing the need to address climate change. The Italy-sized reef is managed like a national park by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
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