Liu, G., Heron, S. F., Eakin, C. M., Rauenzahn, J. L., Geiger, E. F., Skirving, W. J., Burgess, T. F. R., Strong, A. E.

NOAA Coral Reef Watch's next-generation 5 km satellite sea surface temperature-based decision support system for coral bleaching management

2014

NOAA Coral Reef Watch; Global Science and Technology, Inc.

Reef Encounter

29

2

27-29

"Satellite remote sensing has become an essential tool for coral reef environment monitoring. Since 1997, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch (CRW) has provided satellite-based sea surface temperature (SST) products to pinpoint areas where reefs are at risk for coral bleaching around the globe. This is the worlds first and only near-real-time global decision support system (DSS) informing management of tropical coral reef ecosystems. Although highly successful and widely used by the global reef community, the currently operational CRW DSS uses relatively coarse SST data (50 km spatial resolution and twice-weekly temporal resolution) from only one polar-orbiting satellite. Addressing the demand for high-resolution monitoring of thermal stress that leads to bleaching and taking advantage of new satellites, sensors, algorithms, and our growing understanding of coral biology, CRW has developed a suite of next-generation, daily global 5 km geostationary-polar-orbiting (geo-polar) blended night-only SST analysis and a climatology (i.e., SST threshold for detecting bleached related thermal stress) based on the 4 km AVHRR Pathfinder Version 5.2 SST dataset. The high-resolution products currently include SST and SST Anomaly as well as coral bleaching-specific products: Coral Bleaching HotSpots, Degree Heating Weeks (DHW), and Bleaching Alert Area (BAA). These products presently use the same algorithms and stress levels used in CRWs established operational twice-weekly 50 km products."

National Coral Reef Monitoring Plan (NCRMP); climatic monitoring

FY2014 CRCP Project ID 915; Project Title: Coral Reef Watch - Satellite Products for Coral Reef Managers; Principal Investigator: Mark Eakin ~ FY2014 CRCP Project ID 743; Project Title: National Coral Reef Monitoring Plan (NCRMP) Implementation (Climatic Monitoring); Principal Investigator: Jessica Morgan