Story highlights New report reveals details of the largest and most damaging coral bleaching event on record

Global warming is the main cause of coral bleaching, which eventually kills reefs

Over 90% of the Great Barrier Reef now shows evidence of bleaching

(CNN) Global warming has severely damaged huge sections of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The paper's authors warn that the resilience of the planet's largest living structure is waning rapidly.

Data from a series of aerial and underwater surveys shows that a heatwave in summer 2016, which saw sea temperatures in Australia reach record levels, triggered the most damaging and widespread coral bleaching event on record.

Extensive coral bleaching in the Kimberley Region of the Great Barrier Reef as seen in early 2017.

Almost 50% of the reef is now "extremely" bleached and 91% shows at least some signs of bleaching, Sean Connolly, program leader of a government-funded coral reef center at James Cook University, Queensland and the paper's co-author told CNN.

"Coral cover [on the Great Barrier Reef] has halved over the last 27 years," Connolly said.

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