Coral bleaching patterns and resistance
Mass coral bleaching was clearly observed in the Gulf of Thailand in 1998 and 2010. The results of this study indicate that the 2010 coral bleaching phenomenon was more severe than the 1998 bleaching event. This may be partly explained by a longer period of sea surface temperature anomalies in 2010 compared with 1998. The coral bleaching observed at the study site corresponded to the data of sea surface temperatures from NOAA/ NESDIS Coral Reef Watch 2010. The ability of the NOAA/NESDISCoral Bleaching HotSpots model to predict coral bleaching in the Gulf of Thailand is reliable (Pengsakun and Yeemin, 2011). However, as corals are expected to acclimatize to the seawater temperature anomalies, it may require more advanced models to predict coral bleaching in the future, and will need continuous feedback data from field surveys to improve the model