![]() ![]() A warm atmosphere promotes evaporation, increasing atmospheric water vapour content while cooling SSTs via the transfer of sensible and latent heat from the ocean’s surface into the atmosphere. ![]() Atmospheric warming is caused by incident shortwave solar radiation and trapping of the longwave radiation re-emitted by planetary surfaces and “greenhouse gases”. ![]() While the general mechanisms of anthropogenic global warming are straightforward, feedback loops, particularly involving water vapour, can confound predictions of patterns of warming at the regional and local scales. They have also led to the development of a simple and straightforward paradigm regarding critical temperature thresholds: multi-day exposure to SSTs 1–2☌ above the long-term local average will cause mass coral bleaching –. Įxtensive analyses of bleaching patterns, ,, together with comprehensive laboratory experimentation –, have dramatically improved our understanding of coral thermal tolerances and our ability to predict future bleaching occurrences. The extent and intensity of the 1998 bleaching event in the Indo-Pacific in particular has drawn attention to the future of coral reefs on a warming planet –. In the context of coral reefs, global warming has been implicated in the consistent rise in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) over the past 45 years, , and consequently to thermal bleaching events. The reality of climate change is now well established, , and there is strong consensus that anthropogenic changes in carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are contributing to global warming. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: Work supported by:-Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, funding to MJK-Q-IMOS Satellite Remote Sensing funding via CRS' relationship with the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, the Super Science Initiative, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and the Queensland State Government The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Received: FebruAccepted: JPublished: July 24, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Leahy et al. Añel, University of Oxford, United Kingdom It highlights the importance of incorporating local-scale processes into bleaching forecasting models, and encourages the use of remote sensing imagery to value-add to coral bleaching field studies and to more accurately predict risks to coral reefs.Ĭitation: Leahy SM, Kingsford MJ, Steinberg CR (2013) Do Clouds Save the Great Barrier Reef? Satellite Imagery Elucidates the Cloud-SST Relationship at the Local Scale. This work quantifies the often observed cloud cooling effect on coral reefs. SST effects on subsequent cloud cover were weaker and more variable among study summers, with rising SSTs explaining up to 21.6% of the increase in cloud cover three days later. The relationship was strongest in both El Niño (2005) and La Niña (2008) study summers and at the inner-shelf position in those summers. ![]() Cloud cover alone was responsible for up to 32.1% of the variation in SSTs three days later. Across all study summers and shelf positions, SSTs exhibited distinct drops during periods of high cloud cover, and conversely, SST increases during periods of low cloud cover, with a three-day temporal lag between a change in cloud cover and a subsequent change in SST. Detailed direct and lagged relationships between cloud cover and SST across the central Great Barrier Reef (GBR) shelf were investigated using data from satellite imagery and in situ temperature and light loggers during two relatively hot summers (20) and two relatively cool summers (20). In this study, it was hypothesized that cloud cover can affect summer SSTs in the tropics. Cloud feedback processes may have the potential to constrain SSTs, serving to enforce an “ocean thermostat” and promoting the survival of coral reefs. With corals already living close to their thermal maxima, increases in SSTs are of great concern for the survival of coral reefs. Evidence of global climate change and rising sea surface temperatures (SSTs) is now well documented in the scientific literature. ![]()
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