Australia’s largest oceanic reef system is isolated enough to provide researchers with valuable examples of how massive coral bleaching affects reefs, and how they might recover. Severe coral bleaching has twice in recent history severely affected the coral reefs of the Scott Reef complex. It recovered once, but we have yet to see the most recent bleaching event’s ultimate damage.
The short film here helps to show how simultaneously vulnerable and resilient coral reef systems are. While high ocean temperatures negatively affect the reefs, they have an incredible capacity to recover in the right conditions. But will that always be the case?
AIMS researcher James Gilmour and photographer Nick Thake created “Coral Reefs and Our Current Climate.”