Fig. 5
From: Repeat bleaching of a central Pacific coral reef over the past six decades (1960–2016)
Historical coral reef bleaching events on Jarvis Island reconstructed from stress bands. In (a) percent of Porites corals with a stress band in a given year is strongly correlated with the observed level of community bleaching in the same year ( ± one standard error) for Jarvis 2015 (this study) and 2010 (green)21, Howland 2010 (red)21, and Palau 1998 and 2010 (open black circles)19. This relationship allows us to reconstruct the history of bleaching on Jarvis in the absence of visual observations. b Percent of Jarvis Porites corals with a stress band in a given year scale with the level of thermal stress experienced by the community that year, indicating that the Jarvis coral community responds predictably to thermal stress. Total Hotspot, an index of the cumulative thermal stress during a specific event, is calculated from weekly satellite SST spanning the time period 1982–2016. In (c) six decades of coral reef bleaching on Jarvis Island (vertical bars, mean ± one standard error), 1960–2016, constructed from stress bands using the calibration in (a). The time series of ERSST anomalies over the same time period, for a 2° × 2° grid centered on Jarvis, is shown in blue. All bleaching events coincide with high SST anomalies
