Stimulating investment in pearl farming in ... - World Fish Center

Water Temperature and Cyclone Frequency in the Pacific: Implications for Pearl Farming Final, June 20082.4.3 SST web atlas for the Great Barrier ReefThe CRC Reef Research Centre in conjunction with the Australian Institute of MarineScience (AIMS) developed an SST web atlas for the Great Barrier Reef region based on theAVHRR satellite data archive with a spatial resolution of approximately 1 km (AIMS 2008).Sea temperature time series data for the period August 2003 to December 2007 wereobtained for one offshore (Swain Reef) and four inshore locations (Agincourt, Davies andHardy Reefs and Halftide) from the recently-developed sea surface temperature website(AIMS 2008). It should, however, be noted that this is an experimental facility and that theremay be significant errors in the data, because they have not been corrected for the effects ofundetected cloud and other aerosols. Figure 8 shows that the temperatures at theselocations are generally in excess of 20 °C and that at all five locations they sometimes exceed30 °C.2.4.4 NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch ProgramMonthly night-time sea surface temperatures derived from AVHRR measurements takenbetween December 2000 and October 2007 were also obtained for 50 km 2 pixels surroundingor close to Coburg Park, Scott Reef and Ningaloo Reef on the north-west coast of Australia,Davies Reef and Heron Island on the north-east coast of Australia, Beqa in Fiji and Mooreain Tahiti (NOAA 2007). The mean monthly sea temperature ranges obtained for theselocations were:• Coburg Park - 25.4 °C to 30.7 °C;• Scott Reef- 25.7 °C to 30.7 °C;• Ningaloo Reef - 22.9 °C to 29.2 °C;• Heron Island - 21.6 °C to 28.3 ºC;• Davies Reef - 23.0 °C to 29.3 °C;• Beqa - 24.4 °C to 29.7 °C; and• Moorea - 26.2 °C to 29.3 °C.Figure 9a shows that the minimum monthly temperatures occurred at more or less the sametime at Scott Reef and Coburg Park, but sometimes occurred one or two months later atNingaloo Reef. The monthly maxima also occurred later at Ningaloo Reef than at Scott Reefand Coburg Park. Trends in temperature were coincident at the two locations on the northeastcoast of Australia (i.e. at Heron Island and Davies Reef) (Figure 8b). At Beqa, the peaktemperatures occurred either in February, March or April, while troughs occurred either inAugust, August through to September, September or from September through to October(Figure 9). The peaks in temperature at Moorea were also not consistent across the surveyperiod (Figure 9). In most years, the temperature peaked in March, however, in 2002 it didso in April and in 2004 it peaked in January. The minimum temperature was generallyrecorded in September, but in 2003 it occurred in October and from 2004-2005, it spannedAugust and September.The Ecology Lab Pty Ltd – Marine and Freshwater Studies Page 10