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Provide a summary and significance of this article Marine heat wave caused key part of Florida's coral reef to become "functionally extinct," report says By Emily Mae Czachor October 23, 2025 / 2:01 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google A record-setting marine heat wave stripped huge portions of Florida's coral reef of their colors in 2023, triggering the ninth and worst mass bleaching event in the Caribbean. Temperatures soared for weeks, almost completely killing off two of the region's oldest and most important coral species, according to a new report that aims to shine a light on how warming waters can be lethal for the ecosystems they've historically sustained. Co-authored by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of South Florida and several nonprofit organizations, the report was published Thursday in the peer-reviewed academic journal Science. It shared striking findings from an investigation into the effects of that record heat wave on a 350-mile stretch of the Florida reef, which, researchers said, wilted as sea surface temperatures remained at or above 31 degrees Celsius - 87.8 degrees Fahrenheit - for an average of 40.7 days over the summer. The heat stress in pockets of the reef during that time was as much as four times greater than it had been during any previous heat wave or any prior year that scientists recorded temperature data for the area, said Ross Cunning, one of the report's lead authors and a biologist at? Need Assignment Help?