NOAA Coral Reef Watch Operational Daily Near-Real-Time Global 5-km Satellite Coral Bleaching Monitoring Products

Contains a suite of NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) version 3.1 operational global satellite coral bleaching heat stress monitoring products at 5-km resolution produced daily in near real-time, including sea surface temperature (SST), SST anomaly, HotSpot, Degree Heating Week (DHW), and Bleaching Alert Area (BAA). These data are based on CoralTemp Version 1.0, a daily global 5-km sea surface temperature dataset combined from: (1.) NOAA/NESDIS operational near-real-time daily global 5-km geostationary-polar-orbiting (geo-polar) blended night-only SST analysis, (2.) NOAA/NESDIS 2002-2016 reprocessed daily global 5-km geo-polar blended night-only SST analysis, and (3.) United Kingdom Met Office 1985-2002 daily global 5-km night-only SST reanalysis of Operational SST and Sea Ice Analysis (OSTIA). The SST anomaly is the difference of SST compared to daily SST climatology. The coral bleaching HotSpot is a special type of sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly and shows the difference of SST compared to a coral bleaching SST threshold climatology. DHW is the accumulation of Coral Bleaching HotSpots over a period of 12 consecutive weeks. The DHW value at any particular location at any particular time is the summation of the product of HotSpot values which are at least 1 deg C above the bleaching threshold SST and their durations in weeks over the most recent 12-week period. One DHW is equivalent to 1 week of SST at 1 deg C above the threshold or 0.5 week of SST at 2 deg C above the threshold, etc. The units for DHW are deg C-weeks, combining the intensity and duration of heat stress into one single number. Based on research at Coral Reef Watch, when the heat stress reaches 4 deg C-weeks, you can expect to see significant coral bleaching, especially in more sensitive species. When heat stress is 8 deg C-weeks or higher, you would likely see widespread bleaching and mortality from the heat stress.