Sea Surface Temperature Warming Rates in 58 Australian Marine Parks, 2003-2017

58 Australian Marine Parks have their sea surface temperature warming rates measured over 15 years from 2003 to 2017. The data is derived from monthly MODIS (Aqua) satellite SST images, with fields for annual and monthly warming rates in degrees Celsius. This research was supported by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Use Cases

• Modeling climate change impacts on marine ecosystems based on sea surface temperature warming rates.
• Assessing the effectiveness of marine park management in the context of ocean warming.
• Correlating temperature trends with biodiversity changes in specific Australian marine regions.
• Validating and calibrating satellite-derived ocean temperature models for Australian waters.

Strengths

• Covers 58 distinct Australian Marine Parks over a 15-year period (2003-2017).
• Derived from a consistent, well-established satellite source (MODIS Aqua).
• Provides both annual ('slope_y') and monthly ('slope_m') warming rate metrics.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to the 2003-2017 observation window.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, supported by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Collection Method

Derived from monthly MODIS (Aqua) sea surface temperature satellite images.

Time Range

2003 to 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-16 08:26:00.087677; freshness should be verified.

Geography

58 Australian Marine Parks (excluding Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Park).