CRW Experimental Bleaching Outlook Introduction

Bleached coral colonies. Photo by Ray Berkelmans.

Mass bleaching of coral reefs has become a critical problem affecting the health of one of the most diverse coastal ecosystems in the oceans. Although NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) already provides critical, timely information to coral reef managers and scientists based on near real-time satellite monitoring of thermal stress conducive to coral bleaching, an outlook of thermal stress during future months would be very useful for strategic planning and management. A bleaching prediction tool is currently under development by NOAA to provide such an outlook ranging from one week to three months (season) in advance.

NOAA CRW and the Physical Sciences Division of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) have teamed up in this effort. While the outlook product for bleaching thermal stress is currently still in its final stages of the development, preview of this product is now available and presented at this website.

The background of the bleaching outlook product will be introduced briefly first. Sample outlook maps will then be presented along with a demonstration of the retrospective bleaching outlook product for the record-breaking 2005 Caribbean mass bleaching event.