Coral Bleaching Ravages Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Published April 10, 2017 at 1:27 PM EDT

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Philip Kushlan, Ph.D. candidate, works on brushing algae from a piece of staghorn coral that is in a holding tank, he is part of a team researching how multiple climate stressors will impact coral reef in the future at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science on April 22, 2016 in Miami, Florida. As the world reacts to the unprecedented bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, teams of scientists around the world including those at the University of Miami are studying how they can help coral survive the warming and acidification of worlds oceans. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Warm waters continue to bleach coral along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in what scientists are calling the first-ever back-to-back bleaching event for the world’s largest coral reef. Last year two-thirds of the coral along the northern part of the reef died during an unusually warm El Niño year. Surprising many researchers, the bleaching continued in 2017, despite El Niño having ended.

Scientists with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Queensland made the dire assessment after a 5,000-mile aircraft survey of the reef.

Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson discusses the unprecedented coral bleaching along the 1,400-mile reef with Randi Rotjan (@RandiRotjan), a marine biologist at Boston University.