environmental

According to the journal sciencemagazine in the last four decades more than half of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef have suffered whitening.

The health of the Great Barrier Reef, which harbors 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 varieties of mollusks, began to deteriorate in the 1990s due to the warming of sea water and the increase in its acidity due to the increased presence of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Corals can recover if the water temperature drops and the algae are able to recolonize them. Experts say, however, that the reefs that survive the rapid whitening, caused by global warming, remain "deeply damaged", with little prospect of full recovery.