Even if warming is kept to 1.5C, bleaching would hit more than three times a decade, study predicts.

Parts of the Great Barrier Reef would be hit with extreme levels of coral bleaching five times each decade by the middle of this century if global heating was kept just below 2C, according to ‘“confronting” new research.

Even under the most ambitious scenario where heating is kept to 1.5C, coral bleaching strong enough to kill corals would hit somewhere on the reef more than three times a decade, the study predicts.