AbstractsGeography &GIS

Mass coral bleaching in recent years has become a recurring event and was suspected to have a relationship with El Niño events. Changes in the understanding of what constitutes an El Niño event prompted further research into the relationship with Caribbean sea surface temperatures due to their impact on corals. Multiple statistical tests were employed to profile the relationship between the individual event types and the Caribbean. Ultimately, a bootstrapping technique determined that Central Pacific El Niño events bear a relationship, while Eastern Pacific event types do not. An attempt to hindcast El Niño events in order to comment on the history of impacts upon the Caribbean was unsuccessful due to a lack of sufficient input data, but a model determining potential locations of data is presented.