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Sea temperatures in many tropical regions have increased by almost 1°C over the past 100 years and are currently increasing at 1 ~ 2°C per century. Satellite and compiled in situ observations of sea surface temperatures have greatly increased the ability to detect anomalous and persistent warm water and are being widely used to predict climate change, coral bleaching and mortality. In my study I attempted to measure in situ sea surface temperature using vemco water prob loggers. I used three indices: sea surface anomalies, degree heating days and heating rate to determine thermal stress 011 a reef flat. I identified the indices sea surface temperature anomalies provide significant data to determine heating is accruing on a reef and just mean monthly temperature data of a reef is not sufficient enough to indicate that the reef is heating and result in bleaching. Accumulated heat stress represented by exposure time and temperature (DHD) allows for-casting of bleaching severity. The cumulative thermal stress graph in my study indicates that after 120 degree heating days the thermal stress kept increasing on the reef for at least 3 more weeks in cooler month hence its vital to note temperature even after summer months.

Guam, the southernmost island of the Mariana Islands, is likely to encounter a significant typhoon every seven years. During the last thirty years two typhoons have passed directly over Guam—Karen (11 November 1962) and Pamela (21 May 1976). Pamela had maximum winds of 120 kt (145 estimated), minimum sea level pressure of 930 mb, a speed of movement at 7 kt, a diameter of 20 nautical miles, and 33 inches of rainfall during the typhoon passage. The typhoon had its greatest effect along the shoreline where erosion removed many bands of beach deposits and where shoreline vegetation was defoliated. Relatively little damage occurred along the adjacent reef-flat platforms and reef margins. Some unconsolidated materials were shifted. The growing tips of some foliaceous corals fragmented. On the reef front a number of corals were overturned by the storm waves.

Coral reef monitoring lias been an on-going activity in Samoa since 1997. In 1998. a pilot Village Level Coral Reef Monitoring Project (VLCRMP) was initiated in collaboration between The Fisheries Division, the Division of Environment & Conservation and the International Ocean Institute – Pacific Islands. The pilot project provided monitoring equipment and assisted in training the trainers that, in nuns trained 46 villagers from six villages selected from around the country ( Mulipola 2001 ). As a result of the project, several communities have members that are now equipped with the monitoring techniques and they are collaborate with staff of the FD implementing the monitoring of coral reefs in the established community-owned fish reserves.

Ice, snow and climate change are closely linked. The Global Outlook for Ice and Snow investigates those linkages. It also presents information on the trends in ice and snow, the outlook for this century and beyond and the consequences to ecosystems and human well-being of these changes. It covers all parts of the cryosphere (the world of ice): snow, land ice, sea ice, river and lake ice, and frozen ground. The Global Outlook for Ice and Snow was written by more than 70 scientists from around the world.