India, Sept. 1 -- The world's coral reefs are running out of time to recover between increasingly frequent marine heatwaves and global bleaching events, driven by human-induced climate change, a new global study - the 'Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025' said on Monday. Released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the report which looked at more than 40 years of global data, said every major global bleaching event since 1998 has driven a sharp decline in global hard coral cover, creating a "staircase of decline" as recovery windows shrink. Overall, a 9.5% relative decline in hard coral cover has been observed when comparing modern averages (2020-2024) with the reference period (1980-2009), it said.

"Hard coral cove...