Intertidal corals can resist coral bleaching?

A study found that some Australian corals on the intertidal resisted bleaching during the 2010-2011 bleaching event!

Image: Paul and Jill

Sana Dandan says Kimberley corals in tidal pools at low tide at midday are subject to high temperatures and very high light intensity. She also says these are the two most common factors proven to induce coral bleaching, but the corals she observed appeared to be unaffected by them.

Major upgrades in NOAA’s global coral bleaching prediction and monitoring

NOAA announced a major advance in predicting mass coral bleaching, providing the probability of bleaching up to four months ahead.

Using the new seasonal ecological forecast system, NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch does not anticipate any large scale coral bleaching events in the Northern Hemisphere through October 2012.

NOAA has also significantly advanced near-real time satellite monitoring of the high ocean temperatures that can cause coral bleaching. A new generation version of NOAA’s product suite now provides daily 5-km satellite monitoring of coral bleaching thermal stress for reefs around the world. This represents 100 times finer resolution, more frequent observations, and more data than the current twice-weekly 50-km global satellite coral bleaching monitoring.

Findings from the 2010 Singapore coral bleaching event

Some good news from the mass coral bleaching on Singapore reefs in 2010, not only about Singapore reefs but globally!

Mass bleaching seen in June 2010
on a submerged reef off Pulau Semakau

In a recent paper, James Guest found that corals in Singapore and Malaysia that previously experienced severe bleaching in 1998, unexpectedly survived the 2010 event! The paper provides solid field evidence that certain corals in Singapore and Malaysia can cope with higher water temperatures.