The latest Goreau-Hayes Coral Bleaching HotSpot map shows that the exceptionally hot temperatures across the entire Great Barrier reef (which GCRA first warned about a month ago) have just started to decline in recent days, but they still are still well above bleaching conditions and will probably take several weeks to dissipate.
While this is not the hottest it has been there, it has been one of the most widespread and prolonged bleaching event on the GBR, and on top of all the previous bleaching events in recent years, will be affecting already weakened corals that were lucky to survive previous events. The Australians have been slow to report what is happening, but it is clear that this will be a serious blow to their already severely damaged reefs.
We are now much closer to the point we warned about 30 years ago, when global warming will make coral reefs functionally extinct unless we remove the dangerous excess CO2 from the atmosphere and get back down to pre-industrial CO2 levels as fast as possible: