Hourly water temperature from the San Francisco Estuary, 1986 - 2019

Projected temperature increases due to global climate change are
likely to have localized impacts on the San Francisco Estuary (SFE).
Increased water temperature in the SFE will lead to challenges for
managing water resources. Many native species, such as salmon and
smelt, rely on cooler water, and will be further stressed by increased
water temperature. While real-time water temperature is collected by
several state and federal agencies in the San Francisco Estuary, a
landscape-scale synthesis of available water temperature data has not
been conducted for the SFE. For this dataset, we compiled continuous
water temperature data and associated metadata from the SFE to
generate an integrated and usable dataset of known quality for climate
and ecological analysis. Data were obtained from the California Data Exchange Center (CDEC;
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/) for consistency (data are untreated) and
efficiency (existing code to download data directly from CDEC). Data
were integrated and standardized to hourly water temperature data in
degrees Celsius. A series of quality control (QC) checks were then
applied in a consistent manner to all stations. Datasets included in
this package include raw hourly data, flagged data, and filtered data
(where flagged data are removed). Additionally, information regarding
current and historical sensors used for water temperature data
collection was obtained from station managers for each station, and
compiled in a metadata table.