Bleached coral is seen on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas on February 20, 2017 in this handout image from Greenpeace. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTmore-inParts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will never recover from the impact of unseasonably warm waters, scientists said on Thursday, as more of the World Heritage Site comes under renewed threat from a recent spike in sea temperatures. Repeated damage to the Great Barrier Reef may also see UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee reconsider its decision in 2015 not to put the Great Barrier Reef on its “in danger” list. The outlook for the Great Barrier Reef has further darkened with evidence of an unprecedented second consecutive bleaching event this year, researchers at James Cook University said. Unseasonably warm waters threaten to cause bleaching of the central region of the Great Barrier Reef, which avoided the large-scale damage from the bleaching in 2016.

Source: The Hindu March 16, 2017 05:52 UTC