China News Service, October 14 According to the British "Guardian" report on the 14th, the problem of coral bleaching in Australia's Great Barrier Reef is getting worse.

Recently, a study published by Australian researchers showed that the number of corals in the Great Barrier Reef has fallen by more than 50% in the past 25 years.

Scientists warn that if humans cannot reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the scale of corals may shrink further until the Great Barrier Reef becomes illegible.

In April 2020, the third large-scale bleaching event occurred in the Great Barrier Reef in five years. Australian scientists said that this was a signal that the Great Barrier Reef, an oceanic miracle, was "calling for urgent assistance" and calling on people to take action against climate change.

　　According to reports, this study was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Researchers assessed the coral communities and sizes of the Great Barrier Reef from 1995 to 2017.

They found that the number of large, medium and small corals decreased by more than 50%.

　　Terry Hughes, one of the authors of the study and a professor at James Cook University in Australia, said he found that large-scale coral bleaching events caused by record water temperatures in 2016 and 2017 had the greatest impact on coral populations.

　　Hughes said that the most severely affected corals are staghorn corals and table corals.

He said: "These two types of corals are the most three-dimensional, they constitute (biological) habitat." Their reduction may affect the number of fish and the productivity of coral reef fisheries.

　　Hughes warned that if the global average temperature cannot be maintained within 2 degrees, the ocean temperature will rise, and the scale of corals will only shrink further.

　　According to the report, this study does not include the most extensive coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in early 2020.

　　The Great Barrier Reef running through the northeastern coast of Australia is the largest coral reef in the world, with a total length of more than 2,300 kilometers.

In recent years, large-scale coral bleaching has occurred on the Great Barrier Reef due to climate change and other reasons.

In addition, the Great Barrier Reef also faces threats such as marine pollution.

In 2019, the long-term outlook for the Great Barrier Reef was downgraded to "very bad".