HighResCoralStress: Observed and statistically downscaled CMIP6 projections of daily sea surface temperature (SST) at 0.01°/1 km spatial resolution for the global coral reef area from 1985 to 2100.

The HighResCoralStress dataset comprises high spatial resolution (0.01°/1 km) daily sea surface temperature (SST) for the global coral reef area for past (1985-2019) and future (2020-2100) time periods. There are 12 coral reef regions based on those described by McWilliam et al. (2018). They vary in their functional redundancy and so indicate susceptibility to ecological changes with climate change. Statistically downscaled Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) projections of daily SST are provided for 420,334 1 km coral reef pixels in 12 coral reef regions for four shared socio-economic pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5) for the time period (1985-2100). There are separate downscaled CMIP6 files for each region and SSP. The 1 km observed dataset used in the statistical downscaling is also provided for the period (1985-2019). CMIP6 projections of SST were statistically downscaled from their native model resolution (25-100 km) to 1 km spatial resolution using asynchronous linear regression. Full details of the statistical downscaling methodology and source datasets used in this project can be found in Dixon et al. (2022). Coral reefs globally are threatened by rising ocean temperatures and increasing frequency and severity of thermal stress events. High resolution sea surface temperature (SST) projections are a useful tool in climate vulnerability assessments, ecological modelling, spatial planning and conservation decision making for coral reefs around the world. All source datasets used in the generation of HighResCoralStress are openly available and details can be found in Dixon et al. (2022). The authors request that you refer to this article before using the datasets, please refer to online resources on this record for links. Thermal stress metrics calculated using HighResCoralStress can be found at the following link: https://highrescoralstress.org/. The coordinates for the regional boundaries can be found in the NetCDF file attributes. This work was undertaken by researchers from the University of Leeds, Texas Tech University and James Cook University funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project DTP Spheres (NE/L002574/1).