[Coral-List] Lower Florida Keys Bleaching Report

Tue Sep 2 14:31:21 EDT 2014

Dear Coral-listers,

We are currently developing new tools to allow users to view our new 5-km products for regions of interest.  In the meantime, we have just set up a page that contains all of our 5-km products for Florida.  You can find these at:
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/regions/florida.php

The Bleaching Alert Area and Seasonal Outlook are available for several other jurisdictions (most in US) at:
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/testing/csp_testing/test_page_v2.2.php

The NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) experimental daily global 5 km (0.05 degree exactly) satellite coral bleaching thermal stress monitoring product suite presented here is a new-generation version of the current operational twice-weekly 50 km (0.5 degree exactly) monitoring product suite. The new 5-km products are built using NOAA’s new operational 5-km SST products that utilize a constellation of polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites, providing much greater data density than our older 50 km products, despite 100x greater spatial resolution.

We would appreciate any comments or suggestions on these new products. Please send comments to: coralreefwatch at noaa.gov

Cheers,
Mark

On Aug 29, 2014, at 10:36 AM, Mary Vega <vegamary2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear Coral-listers,
> 
> I'd like to draw attention to the new high-spatial resolution (5km) thermal stress indices developed by the NOAA Coral Reef Watch program. Currently, the 5km Bleaching Alert levels around the Lower Keys, Florida Keys, are between 1-2. 
> 
> Also, the high-spatial resolution (1km) Degree Heating Weeks (DHWs) have been between ~4-10 since early August 2014. 
> 
> Below are links to two images from August 25, 2014.
> 
> CRW Bleaching Alert: http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleaching5km/images_archive/b05kmnn_max_r07d_baa_20140825_florida.gif
> 
> 1km DHWs:
> 
> http://imars.marine.usf.edu/avhrr/husf/custom/1/dhw/florida/2014-08-28-000000
> 
> For more information, please visit:
> 
> http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleaching5km/index.php
> 
> http://imars.marine.usf.edu/crw-dss
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Maria 
> 
> Maria Vega-Rodriguez
> PhD Candidate
> Institute for Marine Remote Sensing/IMaRS
> USF - College of Marine Science
> 140 7th Ave. S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> (727) 553-1186 (lab.)
> www.mariavega.info
> www.imars.usf.edu
>  
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, August 27, 2014 6:24 AM, Coral Morphologic <coralmorphologic at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> This past Friday August 22nd we observed that the Hawk Channel patch reefs
> in the Lower Keys are currently undergoing a severe bleaching episode. Most
> of the staghorn corals that we saw were severely bleached or actively
> dying, though there were a few hardy exceptions. Nearly all of the brain
> and massive corals were completely white. All over the reef we observed an
> unhealthy mix of cyanobacteria and algae proliferating. The water
> temperature was an uncomfortable 89 degrees on the bottom (30'), and 87
> degrees at the surface. A short video of the bleached reefs and more in
> depth observations can be found on the Coral Morphologic blog at:
> http://coralmorphologic.com/b/
> 
> Cheers,
> Colin
> 
> Colin Foord
> Co-Founder
> Coral Morphologic
> Miami, FL
> www.coralmorphologic.com
> coralmorphologic at gmail.com
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> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
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> 
> 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Mark Eakin, Ph.D.
Coordinator, NOAA Coral Reef Watch
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Center for Satellite Applications and Research
Satellite Oceanography & Climate Division
e-mail: mark.eakin at noaa.gov
url: coralreefwatch.noaa.gov

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