Climate change threatens even the best-protected and most-remote coral reef ecosystems. Management in the face of climate change must incorporate how various factors (e.g., benthic structure, currents and local upwelling, connectivity, herbivore abundance, thermal history) affect coral and reef ecosystem resilience. Research over the last decade indicates that thermal history is among the most important factors influencing coral reef resilience. With support from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, Coral Reef Watch (CRW) developed a variety of Thermal History metrics for coral reef management, initially released in July 2014. In the current Version 3.1.0 (released October 2020), several Sea Surface Temperature (SST) metrics are calculated for reef-containing locations and adjacent waters and are arranged into six themes: Stress Frequency, Stress Onset, SST Variability, SST Trend, Climatology, and Annual History. The Version 3.1.0 metrics were derived from CRW's Version 3.1 daily global 5km (1/20-degree) CoralTemp satellite SST data product, for the period 1985-2019. Source data for CoralTemp are the NOAA/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) operational near real-time daily global 5km Geostationary-Polar-orbiting (Geo-Polar) Blended Night-only SST Analysis (from 2016-present); the NOAA/NESDIS 2002-2016 reprocessed daily global 5km Geo-Polar Blended Night-only SST Analysis; and the United Kingdom Met Office 1985-2002 daily global 5km night-only SST reanalysis produced on the Operational SST and Sea Ice Analysis (OSTIA) system.
By providing information on the thermal history of coral reef locations and adjacent waters globally, these metrics complement the suite of monitoring and prediction products that CRW has developed as a decision support system (DSS) to provide critical and timely coral reef environment information to the U.S. and international coral reef communities.
The entire suite of products mentioned herein is accessible at https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/index.php.
Ground Condition
Not intended for legal use. Data contain prediction uncertainty.
NOAA/NESDIS/STAR Coral Reef Watch, NCWCP, E/RA3, Room 3222, 5830 University Research Court
https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/stress_frequency.php
https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/stress_onset4.php
https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/sst_variability.php
https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/sst_trend.php
https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/climatology.php
https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/annual_history.php
The accuracy of this product suite depends on the accuracy of CRW's Version 3.1 CoralTemp SST product (which was developed from a combination of NOAA/NESDIS' operational daily global 5km Geo-Polar Blended Night-only SST Analysis; NESDIS’ 2002-2016 reprocessed daily global 5km Geo-Polar Blended Night-only SST Analysis; and the United Kingdom Met Office’s 1985-2002 daily global 5km night-only SST reanalysis on the OSTIA) and CRW's SST climatologies and algorithms used for deriving the 5km SST Anomaly, Coral Bleaching HotSpot, and DHW products. More detailed information can be found on the Thermal History product suite home page: https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/index.php.
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These Version 3.1.0 Thermal History products will be evaluated by scientists, resource managers and other coral reef stakeholders around the world. Values are provided for pixels containing reefs, and those within a buffer distance of reef locations, as identified in the ReefBase, Millennium Mapping Project and Reefs at Risk datasets, among other datasets. Product revision will continue to be based on user feedback.
Users are referred to the product description on CRW's Version 3.1 daily global 5km CoralTemp SST web page (https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/5km/index_5km_sst.php) and to the NOAA/NESDIS Geostationary-Polar-orbiting Blended Global SST Analysis page, available from the NOAA CoastWatch website (https://coastwatch.noaa.gov/cw/satellite-data-products/sea-surface-temperature/sea-surface-temperature-near-real-time-geopolar-blended.html).
All metrics within the Thermal History product suite were derived from the Version 3.1 Daily Global 5km CoralTemp SST dataset.
See product descriptions on pages linked from: https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/index.php.
These are the image display of the Thermal History data
https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/thermal_history/index.php
NOAA makes no warranty regarding these data, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty. NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages caused by any errors or omissions in these data, nor as a result of the failure of these data to function on a particular system.
NOAA Coral Reef Watch Thermal History Metrics web page
NOAA Coral Reef Watch Thermal History Metrics images
The product in various formats may be downloaded from the CRW website or obtained directly from the distributor.
