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Data

Number of coral bleaching events by stage of the ENSO cycle

About this data

Source
Hughes et al. (2018) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
April 13, 2021
Date range
1980–2016
Unit
events

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Hughes et al. – Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene

Data on the frequency of coral bleaching events comes from the work of Hughes et al. (2018). This measures the number of moderate bleaching events (up to 30% of corals) and severe bleaching events (more than 30% corals) measured at 100 fixed global locations.

Our World in Data have categorized these events by year based on the stage in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. This is based on the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) from this source: https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

The ENSO or ONI categorizes years based on whether they are part of the El Nino (warm phase), La Nina (cool phase) or moderate (neither) stage of the cycle.

Retrieved on
April 13, 2021
Retrieved from
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6371/80
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Hughes, T. P., Anderson, K. D., Connolly, S. R., Heron, S. F., Kerry, J. T., Lough, J. M., ... & Wilson, S. K. (2018). Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene. Science, 359(6371), 80-83.

Data on the frequency of coral bleaching events comes from the work of Hughes et al. (2018). This measures the number of moderate bleaching events (up to 30% of corals) and severe bleaching events (more than 30% corals) measured at 100 fixed global locations.

Our World in Data have categorized these events by year based on the stage in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. This is based on the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) from this source: https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

The ENSO or ONI categorizes years based on whether they are part of the El Nino (warm phase), La Nina (cool phase) or moderate (neither) stage of the cycle.

Retrieved on
April 13, 2021
Retrieved from
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6371/80
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Hughes, T. P., Anderson, K. D., Connolly, S. R., Heron, S. F., Kerry, J. T., Lough, J. M., ... & Wilson, S. K. (2018). Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene. Science, 359(6371), 80-83.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Number of coral bleaching events by stage of the ENSO cycle”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from Hughes et al.. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/bleaching-events-enso.html [online resource] (archived on May 12, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Hughes et al. (2018) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Hughes et al. (2018) – processed by Our World in Data. “Number of coral bleaching events by stage of the ENSO cycle” [dataset]. Hughes et al., “Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene” [original data]. Retrieved May 12, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-085513/grapher/bleaching-events-enso.html (archived on May 12, 2026).

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