Mass coral bleaching starting in Singapore in 2013?

There were signs of mass coral bleaching at Terumbu Hantu when we visited on 28 Jun 2013.

Karenne Tun and Debby Ng also shared signs of bleaching on other shores. What is coral bleaching and what can an ordinary person do?

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.