NOAA Coral Reef Watch

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The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration programme that produces global satellite-based reef thermal stress products in near real time, and the reason bleaching risk is a forecast rather than a post-mortem. Its outputs are the sea surface temperature anomaly, the HotSpot, the accumulated Degree Heating Weeks, and the derived bleaching alert levels, published on a global grid and refreshed continuously. Two properties make it consequential beyond monitoring. It is public and global, so a reef manager in a country with no oceanographic capacity sees the same product as one in Australia; and because the alert is issued from satellite data before divers see anything, it converts reef management from response into anticipation — closing a site, deploying survey teams, or moving nursery stock ahead of a predicted event. Coral Reef Watch is also the body whose products underpin the declaration of global bleaching events, jointly with the International Coral Reef Initiative.

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