Last updated October 15, 2021
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Global Coral Bleaching 2014 - 2017

Australia

Global warming triggered the Earth’s third global coral bleaching event, which began in the north Pacific in the summer of 2014 and became global in 2015. NOAA defines a global coral bleaching event as one apparent in all three ocean basins "across multiple reefs spanning 100 kilometers or more".[1][2] The third global bleaching event extended into a record-breaking 4th calendar year in 2017, then officially ended when a NOAA forecast showed that widespread bleaching was no longer happening in all three ocean basins in June 2017.[3] The two earlier global coral bleaching events on record lasted only one year each.[5] They were observed in 1998 and 2010, meaning all such events have taken place within the last 20 years.

The fingerprint of global warming was found in this event.[4] Increased sea surface temperature bleached and killed corals, while ocean acidification simultaneously made it harder for reefs to recover. Due to record marine warmth, coral reefs from the South Pacific to Hawaii, from western Africa to the Caribbean lost the symbiotic algae that feed and give them color. In many places, corals even died off. The most recent global set of observations suggest that 33-50 percent of reefs worldwide had “been significantly degraded or lost” by the beginning of 2016.

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Global warming triggered the Earth’s third global coral bleaching event, which began in the north Pacific in the summer of 2014 and became global in 2015.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Global Warming
Large Scale Global Circulation Change
Sea Surface Temperature Increase
Extreme El Niño Frequency Increase
Ocean Acidification Increase
Coral Bleaching Increase
Global Coral Bleaching 2014 - 2017