Virgin Islands National Park: Coral Reef: Physical Measurements

These data have been utilized for several publications analyzing different
aspects of seawater temperature, including Edmunds: Royal Society 2006, Green et al:
Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 2010, Green and Edmunds: Journal
of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 2011, and Edmunds: Marine Ecology Project
Series 2013. Temperatures were averaged by day and month and used to calculate
annual mean and range using monthly mean temperatures. Daily temperatures were used
to categorize days as hot (> 29.3°C) or cold (≤ 26.0°C), with hot days exceeding the
coral bleaching threshold for St. John (http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite),
and ‘cold days’ less than or equal to the lower 12th percentile of daily seawater
temperatures in Great Lameshur Bay between 1989-2005 (Edmunds 2006).This dataset cotains data annually updated data ongoing since July 1999.