New Coral Reef Watch Publications: NOAA/NESDIS Technical Reports
#142 and
#143. Coral Reef
Watch is pleased to announce the publication of two new technical reports in the
NOAA/NESDIS Technical Report Series.
NOAA Technical Report NESDIS 142,
a product development plan for next-generation remote sensing products, is designed to
assist the NOAA
Coral Reef Conservation Program in
identifying satellite remote sensing opportunities and planning for the application
of these technologies to coral reef management.
NOAA Technical Report NESDIS 143
provides an overview of Coral Reef Watch's operational twice-weekly 50-km satellite
coral bleaching thermal stress monitoring product suite, representing the program's
heritage product suite and the core of
Coral Reef Watch's Decision Support
System for coral bleaching management for much of the last decade.
New: Current atmospheric average monthly CO2 concentration measured at
the NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory
in Hawaii is now displayed as a widget on our home page
to remind everyone of the rise in heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. Click on the
CO2 widget to see details.
New Release:
Satellite Coral Bleaching Light Stress Damage Product - Caribbean
New Release:
5 km Satellite Coral Bleaching Thermal Stress Monitoring Products.
New Release:
Probabilistic Seasonal Coral Bleaching Thermal Stress Outlook.
Wondering how to cite Coral Reef Watch products and methods in your publication?
Please see our new
citation recommendations.
We have expanded our Virtual Station network. Thanks to suggestions
from our user community, we added 36 new stations. Several errors have also
been corrected. Finally, check out our new
Google Maps interface.
NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Technical Memo,
"Satellite Monitoring of Reef
Vulnerability in a Changing Climate" is now available for free download.
A new experimental product has been added. The Florida Keys
7-Day Bleaching Weather Forecast
combines National Weather Service marine forecasts for cloud cover and wind
speed into a weekly bleaching weather index.
A new article on the massive Caribbean bleaching in 2005, co-authored by CRW
scientists and many collaborators throughout the region, has been published in
the PLoS ONE journal. More details
in a NOAA press release and on
our publications page.
High thermal stress for bleaching is predicted to continue throughout
the southern Caribbean into early November. There is a chance for
future stress in the western Pacific Ocean including Palau and the
Federated States of Micronesia that may later propagate into eastern
Indonesia and northern Australia. See
current outlook.
Reef Resilience Webinar: Bleaching Outlook
with Dr. Mark Eakin of the NOAA Coral Reef Watch Program.
There is a high potential for bleaching throughout the Caribbean
and a potential of bleaching in the western Pacific Ocean including Guam,
the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and the
Federated States of Micronesia. See
current outlook.
High potential for bleaching expected throughout the Caribbean and
in the northwestern Pacific Ocean including Guam, the Commonwealth
of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Federated States of
Micronesia. See
current outlook.
Thermal stress now causing bleaching in Indian Ocean and Southeast
Asia expected to subside. High potential for bleaching developing
in Caribbean and Marianas. See
current outlook.
NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Technical Memo,
"Determining
Thermal Capacitance for Protected Area Network Design in
Palau," is now available.
A new report, co-authored by CRW scientists, details
the impacts of climate change in the Caribbean. The report was prepared
for the Copenhagen COP-15 conference, and can be downloaded from
our publications page.
CRW 2001-present monthly,
year-to-date, and annual composite products are now available.
The new experimental
enhanced 50km product suite provides data
up to the coastline, covering more than 99% of coral reef pixels. A
new climatology corrects some errors in the operational products.
Two new experimenal products have been added.
Light Stress Damage combines
light and temperature to predict coral bleaching stress.
Coral Disease Risk Maps pinpoint
regions where temperature conditions set up a risk of outbreaks.
Our
Bleaching Outlook indicates
that the potential for coral bleaching in the Caribbean in 2009 has lessened.
It appears unlikely that bleaching will be severe
along the Pacific coast of Mexico and islands in the equatorial
central Pacific Ocean either.
Our
Bleaching Outlook indicates a significant
potential for high thermal stress in the Caribbean in 2009, with concern
in the central Pacific and near Japan.
Our
Bleaching Outlook indicates a significant
potential for high thermal stress in the Caribbean in 2009, with low level stress
in the central Pacific and near Japan.
We are in the process of switching to a new website design. You will notice
gradual changes to some web pages as we make implement and test the new
design. Please be patient!
Our new twice-weekly satellite global Bleaching
Alert Area Product is now available.
We have released our new Ocean Acidification Product Suite for the Caribbean.
Graphs, data, maps, and animations are available from our
Experimental
Products page. See the
NOAA
press release for more details.
Our
current Coral Bleaching
Outlook
(map and animation) has been updated to include a message about the potential
threat for bleaching around Australia, Papua-New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands.
We have expanded our network of Virtual Stations from 24 to 190 locations
worldwide. Graphs, data, and e-mail alerts are available from our
Experimental Products page.
See the
NOAA press release for more details.
Our current Coral Bleaching Outlook map and
animation are now available in the new version (V3.3) of our Google Earth
product suite. Please check out our
Google Earth product website for detail.
The NOAA Coral Reef Watch bleaching forecast system indicates that there will be
some bleaching across the Caribbean this year, especially in the Windward Islands.
Some bleaching is expected in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and in the western
Pacific from Papua-New Guinea to Japan. See the
experimental seasonal bleaching
outlook page for more details.
A new
NOAA coral
bleaching prediction system
indicates that there will be some bleaching in the Caribbean later this year,
but bleaching will probably not be severe. There is a potential for widespread
bleaching in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and some bleaching along the
western Pacific around Papua-New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan.
See the
NOAA
press release or the
experimental seasonal
bleaching outlook page for more details.
The list of our Coral Bleaching Virtual Stations has expended from its original 24 reef
sites to 57 reef sites in our near-real-time Google
Earth Coral Bleaching Monitoring product.
17 coral scientists from 8 nations, including NOAA Coral Reef Watch coordinator Mark Eakin, say
corals could begin to disappear in 50 to 75 years due to warming temperatures
and increasing ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions. The
findings of the GEF/World Bank group were published as the cover story in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
See the
NOAA press release for more details.
Our Virtual Station network is expanding! Thirty-six new stations, from Aruba to Zanzibar, are now
available on the
experimental products page. Time series charts and data, regional images,
and Satellite Bleaching Alert e-mails are available for these experimental stations.
The
time series data
of CRW operational twice-weekly near-real-time
SST, SST anomaly, Bleaching HotSpot, and Bleaching Degree Heating
Weeks for 24 selected reef sites (CRW's virtual stations) around
the globe are now available.
The OPeNDAP service that serves
our HDF data
for direct network link from
CoastWatch software
tool (CDAT)
has not been available due to a technical problem.
The time of availability remains to be determined.
The HDF data are continuously available via our FTP and HTTP servers.
Our operational twice-weekly near-real-time satellite coral
bleaching monitoring products are now updated during the mornings (U.S.
Eastern Time) of every Monday and Thursday. Click
here to see detail.
Version 0.2
of experimental satellite Doldrums monitoring product is now available
NOAA Coral Reef Watch Announcements
