High resolution spatiotemporal patterns of seawater temperatures across the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef.

Helmuth B, Leichter JJ, Rotjan RD, Castillo KD, Fieseler C, Jones S, Choi F

Scientific data 2020

Coral reefs are under increasingly severe threat from climate change and other anthropogenic stressors. Anomalously high seawater temperatures in particular are known to cause coral bleaching (loss of algal symbionts in the family Symbiodiniaceae), which frequently leads to coral mortality. Remote sensing of sea surface temperature (SST) has served as an invaluable tool for monitoring physical conditions that can lead to bleaching events over relatively large scales (e.g. few kms to 100 s of kms). But, it is also well known that seawater temperatures within a site can vary significantly across depths due to the combined influence of solar heating of surface waters, water column thermal stratification, and cooling from internal waves and upwelling. We deployed small autonomous benthic temperature sensors at depths ranging from 0-40 m in fore reef, back reef, and lagoonal reef habitats on the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System from 2000-2019. These data can be used to calculate depth-specific climatologies across reef depths and sites, and emphasize the dynamic and spatially-variable nature of coral reef physical environments.

3 Figures Extracted

Fig. 1 PMC

Map of logger deployment sites in Belize.

Fig. 2 PMC

Cross-sectional view of Carrie Bow Caye describing back reef and the two fore reefs in this area: inner fore reef and outer fore reef.

Fig. 3 PMC

Climatology of daily maximum water temperature recorded at ( a ) 5 m depth inner reef slope and ( b ) 40 m depth outer reef slope at Carrie Bow Caye f...