Study warns Great Barrier Reef may die by mid-2030s

Large parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef will likely be dead by the mid 2030s as climate change drives the frequency and intensity of mass coral bleaching events, Australian scientists warned on Friday.

Analyzing the current mass bleaching event ravaging the Great Barrier Reef, researchers from the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate System Science found the effects of human-induced climate change had added one-degree Celsius of warming to the ocean temperatures.

But should greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, this extreme temperature will become the new normal within 20 years and cause similar mass bleaching events every two years, the as-yet unpublished findings show.