Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have been spared further heat stress after a late-summer monsoon brought long-awaited cooling to the world-famous coral reef off the country’s eastern coast. Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports, UNN writes.
Details
Clouds and rain arrived in the first months of the year just as the first signs of new coral bleaching appeared in the northern and central parts of the reef, according to the latest annual report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), published on Tuesday.
Wind and waves also helped mix warmer surface water with cooler water from deeper layers. AIMS said the latest results indicated encouraging signs of recovery.
The area covered by live hard corals in the northern and central parts of the reef increased slightly. In the north, it grew from 30% to 35.1% between August 2025 and June 2026, while in the central part the figure rose from 28.6% to 31.6%. In the south, it declined slightly—from 26.9% to 26.4%.
To prepare the report, AIMS surveyed 121 reefs. Coral cover increased on 28% of them, remained unchanged on 56%, and declined on 16%.
Between 2016 and 2025, the reef experienced six mass coral bleaching events.
Bleached corals undergo severe stress, but often do not die and can recover if conditions improve and water temperatures fall.
However, the reef remains under pressure. Fast-growing acropora corals can recover quickly, but they are particularly sensitive to heat, and these positive changes could be reversed within a year by another mass bleaching event, warned Mike Emslie, head of AIMS’s monitoring program.
Background
The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1981. Rising ocean temperatures pose an increasing threat to the reef, along with deteriorating water quality, crown-of-thorns starfish that eat corals, cyclones, and extreme weather events.