About the Outlook System:

The Thermal Stress Outlook is based on sea surface temperature (SST) forecasts generated by the Linear Inverse Model (LIM) from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. In a normal year, the Outlook forecasts no potential for bleaching. When forecast SST exceeds bleaching thresholds over a long enough period to cause bleaching, the outlook maps display the bleaching potential. Actual conditions may vary due to model uncertainty, subsequent changes in climatic conditions, extreme localized variability, or weather patterns. An entirely new outlook system is currently being developed to use the operational Climate Forecast System (CFS) of the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction in the way we now use the LIM model. We hope that the CFS-based version will be available in 2010 and can be used to compare against the current LIM-based system.

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