Southern hemisphere waters are starting to warm for this year's bleaching season. The area likely to experience the highest temperature anomalies and greatest potential for widespread bleaching during the next 12 weeks is a region extending southeast from Papua New Guinea to the Solomon Islands, the GBR, and New Caledonia.

Coral Triangle

Ocean temperatures have begun to cool in the Coral Triangle (CT) region west of Torres Strait as the sun has moved southward. HotSpot values are diminishing across Indonesia from Borneo to Papua. HotSpot values are now zero in most of that area, so we do not anticipate any significant accumulation of thermal stress at this time. This may change with renewed warming around March. Thermal stress continues to accumulate just east of Torres Strait and in the region between Papua-New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. As warming continues and is expected to expand in the Coral Sea, thermal stress may continue to accumulate. Reef locations in the east of the Strait, the eastern-most islands of Papua New Guinea (Venema and Rossel Islands), and the western side of the southern Solomon Islands exceed DHW of 4 (Alert Level 1) and continue to warm. The potential for thermal stress levels that can cause severe bleaching is expected to continue through February.

South Pacific

Some warming with positive HotSpot values and mild accumulation of thermal stress has begun along a band from New Caledonia, past Fiji, to waters south of Raratonga. The bleaching outlook model indicates that there is a potential for high thermal stress for New Caledonia and perhaps Fiji and Tonga, with less extreme warming in the southern Cook Islands and French Polynesia. Warming of waters around New Caledonia is expected to continue through February; stress levels of the magnitude shown by the bleaching outlook model are similar to those that may cause bleaching in New Caledonia.

Seasonal bleaching outlooks can be found at:
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleachingoutlook/index.html

Current HotSpot and Degree Heating Week charts and data formatted for HDF and Google Earth can be found at:
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/index.html

Time series graphics for index sites can be found at:
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/current/sst_series_24reefs.html
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/current/experimental_products.html

You can sign up for automated bleaching alerts at:
http://coralreefwatch-satops.noaa.gov/SBA.html

Please report bleaching events (or non-events) at:
http://www.reefbase.org/contribute/bleachingreport.aspx