Featured Archive - 2012 Publications

Below is a sampling of publications generated by NOAA's coral ecosystem activities in 2012. To access a complete list of NOAA coral ecosystem related publications, use the CoRIS Geoportal
(https://www.coris.noaa.gov/search/) search tool.

Coral reef ecosystems of American Samoa: a 2002 - 2010 overview

During a series of Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (Pacific RAMP) expeditions to the islands and reefs of American Samoa in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010, scientists in the PIFSC Coral Reef Ecosystem Division and partner organizations collected extensive information on coral reef biological communities and habitats and the oceanographic and water-quality parameters influencing them. The survey methods and results are described in this overview report, available for download in PDF format.

Deep Sea Research and Technology Program 2012 Report to Congress

This report, prepared in consultation with the Regional Fishery Management Councils, highlights the discovery of deep-sea coral habitats and other progress made in the nationwide research by NOAA's Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program in 2010 and 2011.

Computing Applications for Satellite Temperature Datasets: A Performance Evaluation of Graphics Processing Units

The Coral Reef Watch program of NOAA develops and provides remote sensing tools for the conservation of coral reef ecosystems. Reef managers and other stakeholders have expressed a desire for higher resolution monitoring tools than those currently available. In moving to higher resolution global products, Coral Reef Watch faces the challenge of orders of magnitude increase in the size of datasets. Traditionally this would mean simply upgrading to faster x86 Intel-based systems however Intel performance per processor has peaked due to frequency scaling issues. Newer Central Processing Unit (CPU) development has adopted a path of multiple cores rather than increasing an individual CPU's performance. To take advantage of newer hardware, a change to parallel programming methods is required and fortunately satellite datasets are relatively well suited to parallel algorithms. However, a newer form of commodity parallel hardware, the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) is significantly advancing in both speed and performance, pushed hard by the demand of consumer gaming enthusiasts.

Implementation of the National Coral Reef Action Strategy: Report on NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Activities from 2010 to 2011

This report covers coral reef-related activities conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program during Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011. It fulfills the requirement under the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000 of periodic reporting on the activities undertaken to advance coral reef conservation as outlined in the National Coral Reef Action Strategy.