Citizen Science Diver-Recorded Seawater Temperatures for the UK Shelf

Cefas assembled this dataset from over 7,000 temperature records collected by divers using temperature-compensated dive computers. The data underwent quality control by comparing recorded temperatures to OSTIA sea surface temperature analyses, excluding records with a difference exceeding 5°C, resulting in a quality-assured subset of just over 5,000 records. This specific subset covers the UK shelf and was created to investigate the potential for citizen science in marine environmental assessments.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite-derived sea surface temperature (OSTIA) products against in-situ diver-collected measurements.
• Assessing the feasibility and accuracy of citizen science contributions to marine environmental monitoring programs.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of seawater temperature across the UK continental shelf.
• Calibrating or supplementing traditional oceanographic sensor networks with data from recreational diving activities.

Strengths

• Dataset is quality-assured, with over 7,000 raw records filtered to just over 5,000 records using a defined 5°C threshold against OSTIA data.
• Data collection method leverages citizen science, providing a potentially dense and cost-effective source of in-situ measurements.
• Part of a larger, structured effort by Cefas to assemble and publish 'all' its temperature data, suggesting institutional curation.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing from all platform entries: specific column names, exact row count, license, author, and file format are unknown.
• The geographic scope is limited to the UK shelf, a subset of a larger global dataset whose full extent is not described.
• The 'last updated' date (2026-06-11) appears inconsistent and may be a placeholder or system artifact.

Provenance

Source

Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), assembled by the Marine Environmental Data & Information Network.

Collection Method

Collected from temperature-compensated dive computers used by citizen scientists (divers), with quality control performed against OSTIA sea surface temperature analyses.

Freshness

2026-06-11 08:10:37.221603

Geography

UK continental shelf.