[Coral-List] a question following up on Mark Eakin's response on "The Evolution of HotSpots"

[Matthew Huber]

Hi Mark,
	Thanks for provided more information on how NOAA does things.  I'm a  
relative newcomer to coral reef science, and I was wondering if you  
could provide a pointer in the right direction on something.  My  
student  and I are are working on a literature review of bleaching  
prediction techniques to determine which have the highest degree of  
accuracy and we are finding it difficult to find more than  
qualitative estimates of accuracy (skill) in many existing  
techniques.  You mentioned that:

 >This led to the birth of the Degree Heating Weeks, an
 >accumulation of NOAA HotSpots over 12 weeks.  This product has been
 >almost 100% successful in identifying conditions that result in
 >bleaching.  It is a bit conservative, as some bleaching events occur
 >below the Bleaching Alert Level 1 (4-8 Degree Heating Weeks).
 >However, except for problems that we have recently identified in the
 >climatology near Oman, all of our distributed reports of stress that
 >should lead to bleaching (Alert Level 1 or higher) have been verified
 >by field observations.  Our Bleaching Watches and Bleaching Warnings
 >are indications that water temperatures have reached threshold levels
 >and that there is a need to be on the lookout for bleaching in the
 >field.

This sounds like a great method.  I've looked at the methodology  
section of the web site and the associated references (plus done  
WebofScience searches) and I have not found quantitative analysis of  
the skill of NOAA methods for the various regions that predictions  
are made for in what I have looked at.  I have found qualitative  
statements of skill like in the EOS article by Bayler and Arzayus for  
the 2002 Barrier reef bleaching event, but I'm looking for something  
quantitative and for all the various sites for which NOAA produces  
bleaching warnings/watches.  Could you point me to something like that?