Staff from NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW), an initiative supported by the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC)-administered Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS), just co-authored a new publication on high-latitude coral bleaching in Australia in Global Change Biology.
The piece, “Refugia under threat: Mass bleaching of coral assemblages in high-latitude eastern Australia”, examined the effect of the 2016 mass coral bleaching event on high latitude corals using almost 9,000 surveyed coral colonies across 22 sites along the east coast of Australia. The researchers also used CRW’s daily global 5km satellite coral bleaching Degree Heating Week product to examine the effects of local-scale variability in cumulative heat stress on assemblage scale and taxon‐specific bleaching responses. The data showed that high latitude corals are vulnerable to bleaching due to climate change-driven marine heatwaves.
Among the NOAA CRW authors are ESSIC/CISESS Associate Research Scientist Dr. Gang Liu, Drs. William Skirving and Scott Heron, subawardees to UMD/ESSIC under the cooperative agreement, and the CRW Coordinator, Dr. C. Mark Eakin.
To access the article, click here: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14772.
