[Coral-List] Long term reef temperature records

[Iain Macdonald]

Dear All,
   
  Surely a good source of long term data (> 50 years) would be from countries that have very near shore reefs, with a power station (including those floating n-power navy ships) extracting seawater for cooling purposes, located nearby (e.g., the Hawai'i case study from the 70's and 80's which is classic). Ports sometimes record seawater temperature aswell, another potential source. The operators of these tend to record the SW temperature at inlet and outfall for efficiency purposes but the beauty is that it is the same person typically for decades doing this using the same equipment for long periods. Just a thought, it would be interesting to compile all the data from around the world to see long term trends in lots of different regions. 
   
  The ROPME sea area could also do with at least one of these advanced data loggers given the susceptibility to bleaching.
   
  Ps if you haven't heard Oman and Iran were hit by a massive cyclone (i think only the third in 50 odd years to make landfall). I believe the researchers are at the moment sorting out their lives before they can contemplate checking the reefs. I hope you are all OK and haven,t lost to much property.
   
  Cheers
  Iain Macd.

Thomas Goreau <goreau at bestweb.net> wrote:
  Dear Gene,

Thanks! You are right, Hal has great data, and I am sure he will 
publish it with Florida bleaching observations.

The longest continuous data I know of is the La Parguera, Puerto Rico 
data set, which I think goes back to 1966. Carlos Goenaga told me 
that this shows a clear localized Hot Spot correlated with a 
localized thermal bleaching event known only from Puerto Rico in 
1969, but apparently not published. I think that after Carlos died 
Amos Winter published the data, but I don't have the paper, or the 
follow up with Paul Sammarco that does some very interesting things 
with the variance of the data in marginal temperature events. Paul 
and Amos can elaborate, since my knowledge is second hand.

Data from Jamaica is much more spotty, we have some from the early 
1950s, and students would make measurements at their thesis sites for 
a year or two in the 1970s, but the locations were all different, as 
were the thermometers. The oldest reef temperatures I have are from 
my father's unpublished whole reef carbon and oxygen metabolism time 
series from Bikini Atoll in 1947 (temperature, oxygen, salinity, pH, 
alkalinity, water depth, with supplemental current and nutrient data 
misplaced) through day/night and tidal cycles, with each measurement 
apart from temperature and water depth a separate chemical 
titration. I've tabulated all the raw data from his original notes 
and will publish this one day.

Although, I will certainly not be involved with those who get the 
money to look at such data, I am sure they will wind up confirming 
the long known primary role of temperature and secondary role of 
other stressors in mass bleaching events. It's a pity that the second 
order effects have been (mis)used to delay action on the primary 
causes for so many decades in order to rediscover what was already 
known, since we will never regain the lost time and corals.

Best wishes,
Tom

Thomas J. Goreau, PhD
President
Global Coral Reef Alliance
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA 02139
617-864-4226 
goreau at bestweb.net
http://www.globalcoral.org


> Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:59:36 -0500
> From: Gene Shinn 
> Subject: [Coral-List] long term water temperature in the Florida Keys
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>
> Tom, Aside from Jamaica it will be interesting to see actual water
> temperature from Florida Keys reefs. Between the 15 years of
> thermograph data recorded since 1974 by Harold Hudson at USGS and the
> more extensive data he has accumulated up to the present with NOAA
> there should be more than 30 years of recorded water temperature data
> available. Perhaps this actual long term data could be thrown into
> the global warming and ocean acidification mix and see what we can
> learn. Gene
> -- 
>
>
> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> ------------------------------------ 
> -----------------------------------
> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> University of South Florida
> Marine Science Center (room 204)
> 140 Seventh Avenue South
> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> 
> Tel 727 553-1158----------------------------------


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