JONES McBONES: G'day, G'day, G'day my name's Jones McBones and welcome to my Aussie Ghost Tours. You want ghosts, we've got ghosts. Plenty of 'em. Here we have the old Melbourne Gaol. Ohhh, spooky. What about an old mine shaft in Western Australia? You bet it's got ghosts. And last but not least, the biggest Ghost Reef in the entire world. Ooh. The spooky remains of the Great Barrier Reef. Looks like it's time to swim with the fishies if you know what I mean.
Let's hope it never quite gets to this. But you know ghost reefs are a thing. They're what you call the dead remains of once thriving coral reefs that can be found around the world. And there are worries that soon, the Great Barrier Reef will be one of them. As you probably know, this natural wonder is in trouble, facing problems like pollution, predators, and rising ocean temperatures.
Now, scientists say the reef is about to face a major bleaching event. Bleaching is when coral loses its colour and turns it bone white. You see, the colours in coral actually comes from the algae that lives inside it. It also helps feed the coral, giving it most of the energy it needs to survive. But if the water heats up too much, the algae says 'see ya later, it's too warm in here'. This doesn't necessarily kill the coral; if the water temperature cools down in time the algae can attach itself again. But if coral stays bleached for too long, then sadly, it'll die. And that's been happening to reefs around the world.
While ocean temperatures naturally go up and down from time to time, scientists say that over the last hundred years, the average temperature has increased by about 1 degree. And it's expected to continue getting even warmer. In the past few years, the Great Barrier Reef has seen some pretty big bleaching events and scientists are worried that because of climate change, they're coming too frequently for the coral to recover. This current ocean heat wave is particularly worrying because it's not following the normal weather patterns that we expect to warm the ocean. And it could kill a lot of coral.
That would be really sad for the world, and a lot of people who rely on the reef, including tourism operators. Because while spooky ghost reefs might be alright for this guy, most of us would much rather have a living reef.
