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Dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity, nitrate, phosphate, temperature and other variables collected from time series observations at Heron Island Reef Flat from 2010-06-01 to 2010-12-13 (NCEI Accession 0127256)

Published by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce | Metadata Last Checked: October 03, 2025 | Last Modified: 2015-04-08T00:00:00.000+00:00
This dataset contains carbonate chemistry and environmental parameters data that were collected from a 200-day time series monitoring on the Heron Island reef flat near the Great Barrier Reef. Understanding the temporal dynamics of present thermal and pH exposure on coral reefs is crucial for elucidating reef response to future global change. Diel ranges in temperature and carbonate chemistry parameters coupled with seasonal changes in the mean conditions define periods during the year when a reef habitat is exposed to anomalous thermal and/or pH exposure. In this study we define anomalous conditions as pH and temperature values that exceed a threshold that we have operationally defined for each variable. We present a 200-day time series from June through December 2010 of carbonate chemistry and environmental parameters measured on the Heron Island reef flat. These data reveal that aragonite saturation state, pH, and pCO2 were primarily modulated by biologically-driven, changes in dissolved organic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA), rather than salinity and temperature. The largest diel temperature ranges occurred in austral spring, in October (1.5 - 6.6 degrees Celsius) and lowest diel ranges (0.9 - 3.2 degrees Celsius) were observed in July, at the peak of winter. We observed large diel total pH variability, with a maximum range of 7.7 - 8.5 total pH units, with minimum diel average pH values occurring during spring and maximum during fall. As with many other reefs, the nighttime pH minima on the reef flat were far lower than pH values predicted for the open ocean by 2100. DIC and TA both increased from June (end of Fall) to December (end of Spring). Using this high-resolution dataset, we developed exposure metrics of pH and temperature individually for intensity, duration, and severity of low pH and high temperature events, as well as a combined metric. Periods of anomalous temperature and pH exposure were asynchronous on the Heron Island reef flat, which underlines the importance of understanding the dynamics of co-occurrence of multiple stressors on coastal ecosystems.

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0127256 CURRENT SPEED DISSOLVED INORGANIC CARBON (DIC) NITRATE pH phosphate PHOTOSYNTHETIC ACTIVE RADIATION (PAR) SALINITY total alkalinity water depth WATER TEMPERATURE carbon dioxide (CO2) gas analyzer CTD PAR Sensor pH sensor titrator time series Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science and Oceans Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of Alaska Fairbanks Scripps Institution of Oceanography NODC Ocean Acidification Scientific Data Stewardship (OADS) Coral Sea South Pacific Ocean oceanography DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NODC > National Oceanographic Data Center, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce Ocean Carbon and Acidification Data System (OCADS) Project EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > BATHYMETRY/SEAFLOOR TOPOGRAPHY > WATER DEPTH EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN CHEMISTRY > ALKALINITY EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN CHEMISTRY > INORGANIC CARBON EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN CHEMISTRY > NITRATE EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN CHEMISTRY > PH EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN CHEMISTRY > PHOSPHATE EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN CIRCULATION > OCEAN CURRENTS EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN OPTICS > PHOTOSYNTHETICALLY ACTIVE RADIATION EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > WATER TEMPERATURE EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > SALINITY/DENSITY > SALINITY Time series DIC Nitrate PAR Phosphate Salinity TA Temperature Water Depth (m) Water Velocity pCO2 pH CO2 ANALYZERS > CO2 ANALYZERS CTD > Conductivity, Temperature, Depth PAR SENSORS > Photosynthetically Active Radiation Sensors PH METERS > PH METERS OCEAN > PACIFIC OCEAN > SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN Heron Island Reef Flat, Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

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