Satellite Study Broadens As Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching Begins

[hatrack]

Following on news that a coral bleaching incident is rapidly developing on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, University of Queensland researchers are working with NASA to understand what this event means for the world's oceans. UQ Research Fellow Dr Scarla Weeks is implementing satellite monitoring of the larger scale dynamics, including ocean temperature and currents, to understand the oceanographic patterns involved in the bleaching process.

Dr Weeks is collaborating with the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre's Ocean Biology Processing Group (OGBP), which is providing one kilometre resolution MODIS satellite data in near-realtime, and with fellow scientists from the UQ and the Australian Institute for Marine Science.

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UQ's Director of the Centre for Marine Studies Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who earlier this month announced his concerns over the imminent bleaching event, said the benchmark bleaching threshold at the University's Heron Island Research Station was exceeded on December 20. “So far conditions appear very similar to those that led to the 2002 event, which was the worst bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef on record,” he said.

“Temperatures for the waters of the southern Great Barrier Reef have been extremely warm and now January is turning out to be well above the long-term average temperatures. “We already have the first inklings of bleaching on the reef slope, while the reef crest corals are looking very pale. I expect we will have very white corals within the next two to three weeks.”

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http://www.uq.edu.au/news/?article=8758

Good thing we're getting plenty of coverage of Mrs. Alito crying in the hearing room!!!!

:puke: