Predicting Coral Bleaching: Forecasting Degree Heating Weeks using Sea Surface Temperature

Coral reefs are some of Earth's most varied and critical ecosystems however, they face an increasing threat because of climate change rising sea surface temperatures (SST). Long-term exposure to high SST can result in coral bleaching, which is when corals lose their symbiotic algae, causing them to lose their color and functionality, which may result in losing many corals. Thus for purposes of reducing the impact of Coral Bleaching it is important to devise predictive models that would be able to provide early warning to coral reef thermal stress. The proposed work focuses on forecasting Degree Heating Weeks (DHW), a statistic used in quantifying cumulative thermal stress upon corals over a period of 12 weeks including analysing past data and also monitoring current SST Levels with an aim to knowing how many DHWs there will be in spatial time frames, so as one can be prepared beforehand if they should happen at all. This method incorporates other factors besides sea surface temperature such as intensity and duration that affect bleeding more efficiently than just relying on sea temperature.