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Coral Degradation Analysis of the Great Barrier Reef
Abnormally warm ocean waters bleach and kill coral reefs. The 2015 El Nino is expected to be the worst on record and could kill most of the Pacific & Indian ocean's reefs.
Data Search Area
Hyperion Image Footprint
The blue shaded area is the footprint for our Hyperion image.
Bleached Coral
Data Search Area
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Project Purpose
The purpose of this project is to find trends that occur when the Swain Reef and Great Barrier Reef are subjected to warm background temperatures during El Nino. This causes corals to become bleached, or lose their intracellular endosymbionts. This is normally reparable damage, but because background temperatures are warmer during El Nino, the corals do not have the ability to recover as they do during milder conditions, and many corals die off as a result of this. Our project aims to analyze and support these claims through the use of remote sensing to compare images spanning several years.
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