Reef-Scale Thermal Stress Monitoring of Coral Ecosystems: New 5-km Global Products from NOAA Coral Reef Watch

Remote Sensing

Gang Liu⁷  Scott F. Heron⁷  C. Mark Eakin⁷  Frank E. Muller-Karger⁸  Maria Vega-Rodriguez⁸  Liane S. Guild⁶  Jacqueline L. De La Cour⁷  Erick F. Geiger⁷  William J. Skirving⁷  Timothy F. R. Burgess⁷  Alan E. Strong⁷  Andy Harris¹  Eileen Maturi¹  Alexander Ignatov¹  John Sapper³  Jianke Li⁴  Susan Lynds⁵  Duccio Rocchini² 

[1] NESDIS/STAR, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740, USA; E-Mails:Coral Reef Watch, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740, USA;;NESDIS/OSPO, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740, USA; E-Mail:;DigitalGlobe, Inc., Herndon, VA 20171, USA; E-Mail:;Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA; E-Mail:;Ames Research Center/Earth Science Division, U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; E-Mail:;Coral Reef Watch, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740, USA; E-Mails:;Institute for Marine Remote Sensing, College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, USA; E-Mails:

关键词: bleaching;    thermal stress;    satellite;    remote sensing;    sea surface temperature (SST);    monitoring;    climatology;    hotspots;    degree heating week;    bleaching alert area;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs61111579

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch (CRW) program has developed a daily global 5-km product suite based on satellite observations to monitor thermal stress on coral reefs. These products fulfill requests from coral reef managers and researchers for higher resolution products by taking advantage of new satellites, sensors and algorithms. Improvements of the 5-km products over CRW’s heritage global 50-km products are derived from: (1) the higher resolution and greater data density of NOAA’s next-generation operational daily global 5-km geo-polar blended sea surface temperature (SST) analysis; and (2) implementation of a new SST climatology derived from the Pathfinder SST climate data record. The new products increase near-shore coverage and now allow direct monitoring of 95% of coral reefs and significantly reduce data gaps caused by cloud cover. The 5-km product suite includes SST Anomaly, Coral Bleaching HotSpots, Degree Heating Weeks and Bleaching Alert Area, matching existing CRW products. When compared with the 50-km products and in situ bleaching observations for 2013–2014, the 5-km products identified known thermal stress events and matched bleaching observations. These near reef-scale products significantly advance the ability of coral reef researchers and managers to monitor coral thermal stress in near-real-time.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.