Predictive tools for white syndromes in Northern Australia: targeting monitoring and infor

An interactive tool provides the first early warning system for coral disease outbreaks, specifically white syndrome. The data consists of color-graded images mapping outbreak likelihood as high or low for northern Australia each summer from 2002 onward. These images are based on retrospective calculations of summer rates of temperature increase from high-resolution remotely sensed temperature data, developed by Maynard and Willis in 2009.

Use Cases

• Targeting coral disease monitoring efforts based on predicted outbreak likelihood maps.
• Informing management response plans for coral reefs based on retrospective temperature increase rates.
• Researching links between climate change, temperature increases, and coral disease outbreaks based on the regression model results.

Strengths

• Provides a first-of-its-kind early warning system for coral disease outbreaks.
• Based on high-resolution remotely sensed temperature data with approximately 1 km pixel resolution.
• Covers a temporal range from the summer of 2002 onward for northern Australia.

Limitations

• Data is presented as images with no units, limiting quantitative analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, Maynard J., Willis B. (2009).

Collection Method

Regression model and retrospective calculations from remotely sensed temperature data.

Time Range

Summers from 2002 onward.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 16:28:59.755846; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef.