Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, Nahant, MA, 01908-1557, USA.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0227, USA.
Sci Data. 2020 Nov 16;7(1):396. doi: 10.1038/s41597-020-00733-6.
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.
珊瑚礁正受到气候变化和其他人为压力源的日益严重的威胁。特别是异常高的海水温度已知会导致珊瑚白化（家族 Symbiodiniaceae 中的藻类共生体丧失），这经常导致珊瑚死亡。海表温度（SST）的遥感已经成为监测可能导致白化事件的物理条件的宝贵工具，这些事件可以在相对较大的范围内发生（例如几公里到 100 多公里）。但是，众所周知，由于表面水的太阳加热、水柱热分层以及内部波和上升流的冷却的综合影响，一个地点内的海水温度在深度上会有很大差异。我们在 2000 年至 2019 年期间在伯利兹中美洲堡礁系统的前礁、后礁和泻湖礁生境中，在 0-40 米的深度部署了小型自主海底温度传感器。这些数据可用于计算跨珊瑚礁深度和地点的特定深度气候概况，并强调珊瑚礁物理环境的动态和空间变化性质。
