NOAA/CIRES tool gives advance warning of coral-stressing heat
Warm water can kill coral, and the “bleaching” of coral reefs around the world, often associated with heat stress, has become a critical problem in reef ecosystems. Bleaching occurs when stressed corals expel symbiotic organisms that give corals their color and help provide them with food. So CIRES researchers and colleagues developed a new tool to forecast warm water episodes. The still-experimental Coral Bleaching Outlook is a companion to NOAA Coral Reef Watch’s real-time satellite monitoring of ocean temperatures. The Outlook uses models and observations of sea surface temperatures to forecast temperatures one week to three months in advance. NOAA and CIRES researchers won a Silver Medal for their work on the outlook.
