[Coral-List] New v3 Coral Reef Watch Bleaching Products

Thu May 4 16:12:39 EDT 2017

NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) <https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/index.php> has just released a new daily global 5km (0.05 degree) satellite coral bleaching heat stress monitoring product suite (Version 3 or v3). As of today, 4 May 2017, daily images and datasets produced are based on the new v3 products. All of the archived data and images in v3 from 2013 to the present soon will be available online, replacing the archived v2 data and images. The email alerts will be based on v3 data starting next week.

While we are distressed that reefs around the world have suffered severe bleaching during the current global coral bleaching event that began in mid-2014, this bleaching event has provided an opportunity for NOAA CRW to validate the v2 satellite products across the tropical ocean basins. Discrepancies that we found between our v2 satellite products and reported bleaching in some reef regions helped to identify issues – your bleaching reports have been essential in this effort. These appear to be linked to the Pathfinder-based climatology used in the v2 5km suite.

A significantly improved climatology, just developed by CRW, has been applied in CRW’s new v3 5km monitoring products. This new climatology was derived from a combination of a recently reprocessed NOAA/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) daily global 5km Geostationary-Polar-orbiting (Geo-Polar) Blended Night-only Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Analysis from 2002-2015 (the result of a multi-year effort), and the 1985-2007 daily global 5km SST reanalysis, produced by the United Kingdom Met Office, on the Operational SST and Sea Ice Analysis (OSTIA) system. The OSTIA SST was recently adopted to provide the bias correction in the generation of NESDIS' operational daily global 5km Geo-Polar Blended Night-only SST, upon which CRW's 5km coral bleaching heat stress monitoring product suite is based. Hence, the reprocessed OSTIA SST (1985-2002), the reprocessed Geo-Polar Blended SST, and the near-real-time Geo-Polar Blended SST data sets all have consistent biases. The combined 1985-present 5km SST data set is as internally-consistent, and consistent with CRW’s 5km near-real-time products, as anything currently available. The methodology employed to calculate the v3 climatology was the same as that used for the v2 climatology and is described on our website.

CRW’s v3 5km suite is still based on the same NOAA/NESDIS SST Analysis as the v2 products; it includes SST, SST Anomaly, Coral Bleaching HotSpot, Degree Heating Week (DHW), a 7-day maximum Bleaching Alert Area, and a 7-day SST Trend. CRW also has a 5km Regional Virtual Stations/Bleaching Heat Stress Gauges product <https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/vs/index.php> and a free, automated 5km Bleaching Alert Email System <http://coralreefwatch-satops.noaa.gov/> that are based on this product suite. For more information on the v3 development, see https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleaching5km_v3/index.php <https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleaching5km_v3/index.php>
In the near future, CRW will release the long-term, internally-consistent, full suite of bleaching heat stress products from 1985-present.

Additionally, this new product release updates our Four-Month Coral Bleaching Heat Stress Outlook to Version 4.0, incorporating as many as 112 ensemble members in the early part of the outlook period. For more information on the v4 Outlook, which will be available in a few days on the CRW website, see: https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleachingoutlook_cfs/outlook_cfs..php <https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleachingoutlook_cfs/outlook_cfs.php>.

Cheers,

Mark and the NOAA Coral Reef Watch Team

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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
Twitter: @CoralReefWatch	FB: Coral Reef Watch

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