Pacific Coral Reef Subsurface Temperature Records 2001-2012

Subsurface temperature recorders provide hourly seawater temperature data from permanent coral reef monitoring sites across the Pacific Ocean. The dataset spans from 2001 to 2012, collected by NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center as part of the Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program. High-accuracy instruments were deployed at depths of 0 to 30 meters for multi-year periods to track temperature variability.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term seawater temperature trends at specific coral reef sites to assess thermal stress.
• Correlating temperature variability with coral bleaching events or reef health surveys at monitored locations.
• Validating and calibrating regional ocean climate models using in-situ temperature measurements from diverse Pacific archipelagos.
• Studying the relationship between water depth (0-30m) and temperature stratification or variability on reef slopes.

Strengths

• Data collection uses high-accuracy SeaBird Electronics (SBE) temperature loggers.
• Time-series are constructed from successive 3-year deployments, enabling long-term analysis at permanent sites.
• Coverage includes multiple Pacific archipelagos: Hawaiian Islands, Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Pacific Remote Island Areas.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last update date, with one listing 2012-09-28 and another listing 2026-04-01.
• Data gaps longer than one hour are padded with null values, indicating potential periods of instrument failure.

Provenance

Source

NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP)

Collection Method

Data collected using subsurface temperature recorders (STRs) deployed for 3-year periods at permanent sites; raw 1-20 minute interval data averaged hourly.

Time Range

2001-09 20 to 2012-09-28

Freshness

2026-04-01 14:53:22.375237

Geography

Coral reef sites across the Hawaiian and Mariana Archipelagos, American Samoa, and the Pacific Remote Island Areas.