MarCOSouth: Coral Bleaching Monitoring Service

About

The Western Indian Ocean Coral Bleaching Monitoring Service provides satellite-derived risk and monitoring products for coastal and nearshore ecosystems that are high-value ecologically-vulnerable natural capital or exploitable resources. The service was co-designed by earth observation researchers and developers from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in collaboration with domain experts and consortium partners from Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean (CORDIO) East Africa.

The earth observation products used within this service are derived using the well-established methodologies of NOAA Coral Reef Watch, applied to the United Kingdom Meteorological Office's Operational Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Ice Analysis (OSTIA) products provided by Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS). The OSTIA product is a Level4 gridded and gap-filled foundation SST, derived using both satellite and in situ information, provided at approximately 5km spatial resolution. All satellite products are updated daily and are produced using regional SST climatologies (derived using OSTIA data from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2019). The user-interface provides an interactive map-based product viewer with clickable pixel information, a selection of graphical virtual stations at key monitoring sites, links to external resources, i.e. coral bleaching alerts as well as in situ bleaching observations from CORDIO East Africa. The service will enable area-based assessment and calculations of coral health in East Africa, giving users the capability to monitor satellite-derived thermal stress and duration, with the potential for assessment in change over time through application of historical monitoring records of reef health.

Satellite-derived products provided in this service:

SST: The daily OSTIA Sea Surface Temperature product. The product units are ℃
SST Anomaly: The deviation of the daily SST from the long term mean. Positive anomalies show SST warmer than average, while negative anomalies show SST cooler than average. The product units are ℃
SST Hotspots: This product shows areas that are warmer than the highest climatological monthly mean. The product units are ℃
Degree Heating Weeks: This product shows the accumulation of SST hotpots greater than 1 ℃ over a 12 week window. The product units are ℃-weeks
Bleaching Alert Areas: This product shows the current potential risk of bleaching heat stress. The product is unitless
Virtual stations: A graphical display of the historical satellite-derived SST information and statistics for a selection of point locations. The product units are ℃