‘See Barrier Reef while you still can’

A Kiwi climate scientist tells those wanting to visit Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: See it now before it’s too late.

Dr Jim Salinger said the “burning, drying and flooding” continent was now experiencing dramatic impacts from climate change.

“The iconic Great Barrier Reef, already badly damaged by global warming during three extreme heatwaves, in 1998, 2002 and 2016, is being yet damaged by a new bleaching event is under way now,” said Salinger, an honorary research fellow at Otago University’s Department of Geography.

“The extreme marine heatwave in 2016 killed two-thirds of the corals along a 700km stretch of the northern Great Barrier Reef, from Port Douglas to Papua New Guinea.

“The message is simple — visit it now otherwise if we see more diebacks of corals in the next few years, little if any action on emissions and inadequate progress on water quality, then [it faces] an ‘in danger’ listing in 2020 as a World Heritage area.”

Salinger said the past summer had brought prolonged and at times extreme heat over New South Wales, southern Queensland, South Australia and parts of northern Victoria. The three heatwaves in January and early February saw unusually high temperatures for at least three consecutive days.

“In New South Wales, for example, Moree had 54 consecutive days of 35C or above from December 27, 2016 to February 18, 2017. The previous record for New South Wales was 50 days at Bourke Airport,” Salinger said.

“The Brisbane and Gold Coast areas continue to have runs of days above the mid and low 30C respectively, and it is now the end of March.”

A major study of the Great Barrier Reef in the journal this month reported how reducing pollution and curbing overfishing wouldn’t prevent the severe bleaching that is killing coral at catastrophic rates.