Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Maximum Degree Heating Week, 2000-2013 - Hawaii

Sea surface temperature (SST) plays an important role in a number of ecological processes and can vary over a wide range of time scales, from daily to decadal changes. SST influences primary production, species migration patterns, and coral health. If temperatures are anomalously warm for extended periods of time, drastic changes in the surrounding ecosystem can result, including harmful effects such as coral bleaching. Degree Heating Weeks (DHW) is a metric of this thermal stress on corals. This layer represents the maximum weekly DHW of SST (Celsius weeks) from 2000-2013. NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) methodology was used to calculate the DHW time series. Please see the CRW website for details on how the DHW product is calculated (http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov).

Three SST datasets were combined to provide continuous coverage from 1985-2013. The concatenation applies bias adjustment derived from linear regression to the overlap periods of datasets, with the final representation matching the 0.05-degree (~5-km) near real-time SST product. First, a weekly composite, gap-filled SST dataset from the NOAA Pathfinder v5.2 SST 1/24-degree (~4-km), daily dataset (a NOAA Climate Data Record) for each location was produced following Heron et al. (2010) for January 1985 to December 2012. Next, weekly composite SST data from the NOAA/NESDIS/STAR Blended SST 0.1-degree (~11-km), daily dataset was produced for February 2009 to October 2013. Finally, a weekly composite SST dataset from the NOAA/NESDIS/STAR Blended SST 0.05-degree (~5-km), daily dataset was produced for March 2012 to December 2013.

This SST weekly DHW data layer represents the maximum DHW experienced at any point for a given satellite pixel over the 2000-2013 time frame.