claim: The projection that much of the Great Barrier Reef could perish within the next few decades could turn out to be too pessimistic, since other research has shown that some species of corals are surprisingly resilient to the stress from changing ocean temperatures.
evidence: In March 2017, the journal Nature published a paper showing that huge sections of an 800-kilometre ( 500 mi ) stretch in the northern part of the reef had died in the course of 2016 due to high water temperatures, an event that the authors put down to the effects of global climate change.