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  • 2016-10-14 (xsd:date)
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  • Scientists Pronounce Great Barrier Reef 'Dead' (en)
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  • On October 11, 2016, Outside Magazine Online published a piece titled Obituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC–2016), which used the obituary format as a vehicle to describe the perilously fragile state of the Great Barrier Reef — the world's largest coral reef system that lies off the coast of Queensland, Australia — in the face of increasing sea surface temperatures and ocean acidity. The obit opened with the statement that The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old. This bleak assessment was a response to a number of different reports describing the extent of a massive coral bleaching event from earlier in 2016. Coral bleaching, as defined by Australia's National Coral Bleaching Task Force: In March 2016, the Coral Bleaching task force, a joint effort between members of numerous educational and governmental research organizations, released a preliminary report that concluded that a section of the Great Barrier Reef was experiencing the worst mass bleaching event in its history: In May 2016, the Australian non-profit research group Climate Council also released a report that offered similar dire information: This report also warned that similar events would be more frequent in the face of higher global temperatures: Adding to this grim outlook, a survey of the extent and severity of coral bleaching between March and June 2016 conducted by the Australian Government’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and released on 13 October 2016 found that: While the threats to the Great Barrier Reef are well documented and not controversial amongst the scientific community, no scientist has actually proclaimed the reef (which, in reality, is a massive sprawling collection of organisms) to be officially dead. It is also unclear what organization or individual would, like a doctor in an ER, have the authority to pronounce a massive ecological community officially dead. In fact, scientists have expressed frustration with the virality of the Outside Magazine piece, arguing that it both misinforms the public and suggests that efforts made to reverse the damage to the reef are fruitless, as the Huffington Post observed: In the same Huffington Post report, Hughes noted that the Outside Magazine piece wasn’t entirely accurate, either: (en)
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