ReefTEMPS: The Pacific Islands Coastal Temperature Network

Le Gendre, Romain and Varillon, David and Fiat, Sylvie and Hocdé, Régis and De Ramon N'Yeurt, Antoine and Aucan, Jerome and Cravatte, Sophie and Duphil, Maxime and Ganachaud, Alexandre and Gaudron, Baptiste and Kestenare, Elodie and Liao, Vetea and Pelletier, Bernard and Peltier, Alexandre and Schaefer, Anne-Lou and Trophime, Thomas and Van Wynsberge, Simon and Dandonneau, Yves and Allenbach, Michel and Menkes, Christophe (2025) ReefTEMPS: The Pacific Islands Coastal Temperature Network. Earth System Science Data, 17 (10). pp. 5277-5301. ISSN 1866-3591

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Abstract

While the rise in global ocean temperature continues its course, reaching 1.45±0.12 °C above pre-industrial level according to the World Meteorological Organization in 2023, marine heatwave frequencies and intensities increase. Consequently, coral reef ecosystems, which are among the most vulnerable environments, are strongly impacted by dystrophic events and corals experiencing increasing frequencies of bleaching events. That has devastating consequences for the Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) that strongly rely on these ecosystems. In situ observation remains the best alternative for providing accurate characterization of long-term trends and extremes in these shallow environments. This paper presents the coastal temperature dataset of the ReefTEMPS monitoring network (Varillon et al., 2025, https://doi.org/10.17882/55128; Liao et al., 2025, https://doi.org/10.17882/82291) in which moored stations are implemented over a number of PICTs over a wide region in the western and central South Pacific from New Caledonia to French Polynesia. These in situ temperature time series are unique in several ways: in the length of some historical stations dating back to 1958 for the oldest, thus providing more than 65 years of daily data; in the number of countries sampled (16 PICTs); and in the variety of coral ecosystems monitored (from atolls to high islands and from barrier reefs' external slopes to shallow and narrow lagoons). Measurement devices have evolved over the years to provide increasingly precise and frequent observations, so the ReefTEMPS network was endorsed as a French National Observation Service in 2020, a label ensuring quality-controlled and open-access data of long-term observations. All stations are publicly available in ASCII or formatted NetCDF files either in the ReefTEMPS dedicated information system, which also allows for a quick visualization of time series, or on the SEANOE marine data platform. All links and accesses to these temperature time series are provided herein. The longevity of these temperature time series allows for diagnosing long-term trends, highlighting the influence of multiple processes on temperature dynamics (e.g. internal waves, cyclones, seasonal, and climate modes) and documenting the time evolution of extreme events.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Surface Seawater Temperature, Monitoring, SST, Climate Change, Coral Bleaching, Upwellings, Oceanography, Coral Reefs, Pacific Islands
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GC Oceanography G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences Q Science > QC Physics > QC851-999 Meteorology. Climatology Including the earth's atmosphere Q Science > QC Physics > QC980-999 Climatology and weather Q Science > QC Physics > QC994.95-999 Weather forecasting
Divisions:	Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PACE-SD)
Depositing User:	Antoine N'Yeurt
Date Deposited:	10 Dec 2025 23:19
Last Modified:	10 Dec 2025 23:19
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/15158

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