Great Barrier Reef ocean temperatures hit 400-year record: study

AFP English

For the past decade, water temperatures along Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef have been the warmest in 400 years, according to a major study in Nature.  The science journal says it's most likely down to human-induced climate change.

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00:34These corals have lived for 400 years

00:37and this is the warmest temperatures they're experiencing.

00:40These changes, from what we're seeing so far,

00:42appear to be happening too rapidly for the corals to adapt to.

00:47So it really, to my mind, it really threatens the reef as we know it.

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01:15Unfortunately, we won't know when the resilience of the reef

01:23expires until it's too late.

01:25At the moment, we can see the reef is resilient.

01:28It's bounced back from previous coral bleaching events.

01:33But at some point, that elastic band will snap.

01:37I think coral reefs are, as an ecosystem,

01:42the first ecosystem on the planet to be existentially threatened

01:48by climate change.

01:51I think we have to be hopeful that the world is not going to stand by

01:54and let that happen.

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