Coral Reef Watch

Location: Coral reef habitats globally.

Description: NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) is undertaking an effort to determine the severity and distribution of recent coral bleaching and mortality, and compare these with satellite measurements of bleaching heat stress.

Background: Mass coral bleaching events (some on the global scale) have been occurring more and more frequently in the last 30 years. A large number of coral reef areas in the United States and worldwide have experienced severe bleaching, sometimes in back-to-back events. For instance, elevated ocean temperatures in 2010 resulted in a major coral bleaching event in many parts of the world; this became known as the second global bleaching event on record. In 2014, record heat stress and bleaching were observed in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (for the second year in a row), the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the Main Hawaiian Islands, and the Marshall Islands, among other regions. We now know this was the beginning of the third documented global coral bleaching event, which persists today. As of April 2017, the ongoing global bleaching event continues to be the longest, most widespread, and most damaging on record. It has affected more reefs than any previous global bleaching event and has been worse in some locales (e.g., Great Barrier Reef, Kiribati, Jarvis Island). Heat stress during this event also has caused mass bleaching in several reefs that never bleached before (e.g., northernmost Great Barrier Reef).

Funding: NOAA for the Coral Reef Watch Program; Open invitation for LEO Network support.

Partners: Global partners

Observing Guidance: Please make LEO observations to provide descriptions, including photos and video, of the condition of specific coral reef locations using LEO's 'Make observation' link, which includes a precise 'Locator Tool'. Please also consider filling out qualitative and quantitative questionnaires provided by NOAA, which are linked below with instructions from NOAA's Coral Reef Watch program:

"At this time, we are collecting information on coral bleaching from 2014 onwards for comparison with satellite data. (Click here for a copy of the email CRW sent to field partners around the world requesting their recent bleaching data.) If you wish to contribute bleaching observation data (including reports of 'no bleaching') to our effort, please complete BOTH the qualitative and quantitative bleaching report forms below, and email them to coralreefwatch@noaa.gov. Observations of both bleaching and no bleaching on your coral reefs are very important for the calibration/validation of CRW's satellite products."

NOAA Coral Reef Watch Bleaching Observation Forms:

Quantitative Questionnaire (Excel spreadsheet, 223kb, Revised Sep 14, 2015)

Qualitative Questionnaire (Microsoft Word document, 435kb, Revised Jul 30, 2015)

To learn more about the status of the ongoing global coral bleaching event, click here.

For additional information about the Top 10 Things Resource Managers and Other Coral Reef Stakeholders Can Do Before, During, and After a Bleaching Event, click here.

Videos:

NOAA Restoring Coral Reefs

Coral Reef Watch program in Belize

Source Data: Contributed observations and measurements to the LEO Network and to NOAA.

Outputs: LEO database, NOAA Coral Reef Watch database, reports, and publications.

Project Updates: From the NOAA Coral Reef Watch program, and from the LEO Program through newsletters, reports, and publications.

Resources:

Reporting 2014-17 Coral Bleaching Observations to NOAA Coral Reef Watch

National Ocean Service Coral Bleaching Fact Sheet

Coral Bleaching on Wikipedia

References:

Bahr, KD, Jokiel PL, and Rodgers KS (2015) The 2014 coral bleaching and freshwater flood events in Ka̅ne´ohe Bay, Hawai´i. PeerJ 3: e1136, doi: 10.7717/peerj.1136.

Bond NA, Cronin MF, Freeland J, and Mantua N (2015) Causes and impacts of the 2014 warm anomaly in the NE Pacific. Geophysical Research Letters 42(9): 3414-3420. Brown, B.E., 1997. Coral bleaching: causes and consequences. Coral reefs, 16(5), pp.S129-S138.

Coffroth MA, Lasker HR, and Oliver JK (1990) Coral Mortality Outside of the Eastern Pacific During 1982-1983: Relationship to El Niño. In Glynn PW (ed.) Global Ecological Consequences of the 1982-83 El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Elsevier Oceanography Series 52:141-182.

De´ath G, Fabricius KE, Sweatman H, and Puotinen M (2012) The 27-year decline of coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef and its causes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1208909109.

Eakin, CM, Rauenzahn JL, Liu G, Heron SF, Skirving WJ, Geiger EF, and Strong AE (2014) Will 2014-2015 be the Next Big El Niño? If so, What Might it Mean for Coral Reefs? Reef Encounter 29(5): 30-35.

Fellenius K (2014) Republic of the Marshall Islands Coral Bleaching Report. University of Hawai´i Sea Grant, Coastal Management Extension. Dec 31, 2014. Glynn, P. W. 1993. Coral reef bleaching: ecological perspectives. Coral Reefs 12.1: 1-17.

Harvey, C (2015) Why dead coral reefs could mark the beginning of 'dangerous' climate change. The Washington Post, April 12, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/12/why-dead-coral-reefs-stir-fears-of-dangerous-climate-change/.

Heron, S.F., Johnston L., Liu G., Geiger E.F., Maynard J.A., De La Cour J.L., Johnson S., Okano R., Benavente D., Burgess T.F.R., Iguel J., Perez D., Skirving W.J., Strong A.E., Tirak K., Eakin C.M. (2016a) Validation of Reef-scale Thermal Stress Satellite Products for Coral Bleaching Monitoring. Remote Sens. 8(1): 59, doi: 10.3390/rs8010059.

Heron, SF, Eakin CM, vanHooidonk R, Maynard JA (2016b) Coral Reefs. In Laffoley D and Baxter J (eds.) Explaining ocean warming: causes, scale, effects and consequences, International Union for the Conservation of Nature. In press.

Hoegh-Guldberg, O., 1999. Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefs. Marine and freshwater research, 50(8), pp.839-866.

Jokiel PL, Brown EK (2004) Global warming, regional trends and inshore environmental conditions influence coral bleaching in Hawai´i.Global Change Biology 10: 1627-1641.

Liu, G, Heron SF, Eakin CM, Muller-Karger FE, Vega-Rodriguez M, Guild LS, De La Cour JL, Geiger EF, Skirving WJ, Burgess TFR, Strong AE, Harris A, Maturi E, Ignatov A, Sapper J, Li J, Lynds S (2014) Reef-scale Thermal Stress Monitoring of Coral Ecosystems: New 5-km Global Products from NOAA Coral Reef Watch. Remote Sens. 6(11): 11579-11606, doi:10.3390/rs61111579.

Wilkinson, C (2000) Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000. Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Australia.

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