Annual time series of sea surface temperature (SST) measurements collected by a surfer at Wembury Beach, Plymouth, UK.

This dataset consists of an annual time series of sea surface temperature (SST) data collected by a recreational surfer at Wembury beach, Plymouth, UK, between 5th January 2014 and 4th January 2015. This data were collected as part of a research project funded by Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Over the study period, the recreational surfer collected 63 independent samples on SST at a near weekly temporal sampling rate at Wembury beach. The surfer was equipped with a UTBI-001 Tidbit V2 Temperature Data Logger and a Garmin etrex 10 GPS. The Garmin etrex 10 device was used to extract GPS information (latitude and longitude) for each surf. The Tidbit V2 temperature logger was attached, using cable-ties, at mid-point to the leash of the surfboard to ensure continuous contact with seawater when surfing, measuring temperature in the top metre of the water column. Three times during the period of study (May and August 2014 and January 2015), the Tidbit V2 temperature logger was rigorously compared with a VWR1620-200 traceable digital thermometer (with an accuracy of 0.05°C at the range of 0 to 100°C) at 1°C intervals from 6 to 25°C using a PolyScience temperature bath, and found to perform within the accuracy of the VWR1620-200 traceable thermometer on all three occasions. Temperature data were collected at 10 second intervals during each surfing session. The data were processed to remove any data collected before and after entering the water and SST were extracted by computing the median of the remaining data. Standard deviations on the remaining data are also provided to give an index of SST variability during each surf session.