Global lake surface water temperature layers

In modeling species distributions and population dynamics,
spatially-interpolated climatic data are often used as proxies for real,
on-the-ground measurements. In shallow freshwater systems, this practice
may be problematic as interpolations used for surface waters are generated
from terrestrial sensor networks measuring air temperatures. Using these
may therefore bias statistical estimates of species' environmental
tolerances or population projections -- particularly among pleustonic and
epilimnetic organisms. I used a global database of satellite-derived lake
surface water temperatures (LSWT) to assess and correct for the
statistical correspondence between air and LSWT as a function of
atmospheric and topographic predictors, resulting in the creation of
monthly high-resolution global maps of air-LSWT offsets, corresponding
uncertainty measures, and derived LSWT-based bioclimatic layers for use by
the scientific community.