High-resolution Marine Heat Wave Mapping in Australasian waters using Himawari-8 SST and SSTAARS data

Marine heat waves (MHWs) have significant ecological and economic impact. Consequently, there is a pressing need to map the temporal and spatial patterns of MHWs, for both historical and near real-time events. Satellite remote sensing of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) provides fundamental data for the mapping of MHWs. This study used high-resolution Himarwari-8 SST and the Sea Surface Temperature Atlas of the Australian Regional Seas (SSTAARS) data, which have a spatial resolution of ~ 2 km, to map recent and near real-time MHW events in waters around Australasia. The high-resolution MHWs mapping has identified two broad areas of MHW hotspots between August 2015 and February 2019. Firstly, the Tropical Warm Pool region (including the GBR and part of the Coral Sea) between the maritime continent and the Australian continent was affected by strong and prolonged MHW conditions for the greater part of 2016. The unusually strong 2015-16 El Niño event was believed to be the primary driver for the MHWs, and the air-sea heat flux rather than the ocean advection was the main local process controlling the heat budget. Secondly, the south-east of the study area (including Australia’s south-east coast, the Tasman Sea and New Zealand’s east coast) suffered severe MHWs in 2015-16, 2017-18 and 2018-19. ENSO played little role in the generation of the MHWs in this region. Instead, the MHWs in the western part of this region were more likely due to the extensive heat transported by the East Australia Current; while in the eastern part, the MHWs were more likely due to more local climate modes such as SAM. This mapping has not only enhanced our understanding of the spatio-temporal characteristics of several previously documented MHWs but also identified and mapped several previously undocumented MHWs. The case study in the Beagle Marine Park proved the values of Himawari-8 SST and SSTAARS data in mapping fine details of MHWs in a small area, which are not possible for broad-scale SST data such as the Optimal Interpolated SST (OISST) which has a spatial resolution of ~ 25 km. The case study revealed much stronger MHW influence in the shallow waters east of the marine park where most of the important rocky reef habitats exist. The near-real time MHWs mapping shows that both the GBR and the Coral Sea marine parks were experiencing MHW conditions in early March 2020, with most affected areas having strong MHW class.

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Identification info

Date (Creation)
2020-06-10
Date (Publication)
2023-11-01T05:47:55
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/140053

Identifier

Codespace

Digital Object Identifier

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Huang, Z.
Author

Feng, M.

 External Contact
Author

Beggs, H.

 External Contact
Author

Wijffels, S.

 External Contact
Author

Cahill, M.

 External Contact
Author

Griffin, C.

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Publisher

Elsevier Inc.

 External Contact
Name

Remote Sensing of Environment

Issue identification

Volume 267, 15 December 2021

Page

112742

Purpose

external publication

Status
On going
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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Resource provider

Place and Communities Division

 External Contact
Point of contact

Huang, Z.

 Place and Communities Internal Contact
Spatial representation type

Extent

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
As needed

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Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

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Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf

  • EARTH SCIENCES

Process

  • Marine Heat Waves - MHW

Instrument

  • Himawari-8

Product

  • Sea Surface Temperature -SST

Keywords

  • Surface Temperature Atlas of the Australian Regional Seas - SSTAARS

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

All rights reserved.

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

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http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

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© Commonwealth of Australia 2021

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Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
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https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

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Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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OnLine resource

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Link to Journal

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Resource lineage

Statement

This paper is the result of the collaboration with researchers in CSIRO and BOM. The paper is published. Citation: Huang, Z., Feng, M., Beggs, H., Wijffels, S., Cahill, M., Griffin, C., 2021. High-resolution marine heatwave mapping in Australasian waters using Himawari-8 SST and SSTAARS data, Remote Sensing of Environment, 267, 112742.

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/28ec3d59-f729-4901-bd8d-d2cc2d49cee8

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Owner

Huang, Z.

 Place and Communities Internal Contact
Point of contact

Huang, Z.

 Place and Communities Internal Contact

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

Journal Articles and Conference Papers

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/140053

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/5167d912-6784-4371-9938-3931e84ca6f1

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au:80/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/28ec3d59-f729-4901-bd8d-d2cc2d49cee8

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/js/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/28ec3d59-f729-4901-bd8d-d2cc2d49cee8

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/28ec3d59-f729-4901-bd8d-d2cc2d49cee8

Date info (Creation)
2019-04-08T01:55:29
Date info (Revision)
2019-04-08T01:55:29

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

Himawari-8 Marine Heat Waves - MHW Sea Surface Temperature -SST Surface Temperature Atlas of the Australian Regional Seas - SSTAARS
theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
EARTH SCIENCES

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