1. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS NOAA Report on Ocean Parameters – Coral Reef Watch Presented to CGMS-43 Working Group 2 session, agenda item 9 Author: Mark Eakin

2. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Introduction The Coral Reef Watch mission is to utilize remote sensing and in situ tools for near-real- time and long term monitoring, modeling and reporting of physical environmental conditions of coral reef ecosystems. Primarily, Coral Reef Watch uses satellite data to provide current reef environmental conditions to quickly identify areas at risk for coral bleaching around the worldcoral bleaching This talk provide an overview of the Coral Reef Watch program, which uses SST anomalies blended from VIIRS, AVHRR, and GOES. The Coral Reef Watch product suit alerts natural resource managers to the onset of coral bleaching, an important climate change threat to these valuable coral reef ecosystem. Slide: 2

3. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Key Issue: Geo-Polar Blended Products Coral Reef Watch’s new 5-km product suite would not be possible without the new NOAA/NESDIS 5-km SST dataset that requires blending of polar and geostationary satellites New 5-km Geostationary-Polar Blend Climatology: – 22 year, 4 km (Pathfinder AVHRR) Data: – 5 km Operational Blended, night only – 2 Polar-orbiters – 4 Geostationary – Up to 50 scenes/day Slide: 3

4. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Why Blended? Pathfinder 35°S – 35°N: 12.6% with quality ≥ 4 90°S – 90°N: 7.8% with quality ≥ 4 VIIRS Pathfinder Polar-orbiters alone provide insufficient data for continuous, gap-filled coverage, especially in tropics Slide: 4

5. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Why Blended? Data gaps pronounced in cloudy regions Coral Triangle: frequent persistent cloud cover 50-km polar-only Purple line 5-km Geo-Polar Green: max Red: mean Yellow: Min Slide: 5

6. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS 6 Coral – specific Sea Surface Temperature SST Anomaly HotSpot Degree Heating Week Bleaching Alert Area Coral Reef Watch 5-km Satellite-Based Products

7. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS 50-km 5-km Product Suite for Coral Bleaching 5-km Bleaching Alert 16 Oct 2014 Current Weeks 1-4 Weeks 5-8 Weeks 9-12 American Samoa Bleaching Feb. 2015 Samoas Satellite Coral Bleaching Alert Area and Outlook 2015-02-07 Current Coral Bleaching Alert Level Coral Bleaching Alert Level Outlook Weeks 1-4 Coral Bleaching Alert Level Outlook Weeks 5-8 Coral Bleaching Alert Level Outlook Weeks 9-12 Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Slide: 7

8. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Immediate Acceptance of New Products by Users Slide: 8

9. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Slide: 9 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS  Value of blended data:  Polar necessary for global coverage  Geostationary essential to fill gaps caused by clouds  Unresolved Issue: In Situ Verification  The database of near-shore SST data for verification limited  In Situ SST data coverage poor in developing nations  Reporting of coral bleaching even more limited  Most countries lack bleaching observations  No functioning coordinated international program to collect bleaching observations  Verification of bleaching somewhat ad hoc Key issues of relevance to CGMS:

10. CGMS-43-NOAA-WP-24 Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites - CGMS Summary Coral Reef Watch bleaching products globally accepted and used by resource managers New 5-km blended products a major improvement over heritage 50-km polar- only products Still have need for better in situ data for – Nearshore SST – Coral bleaching Slide: 10