This page updates weekly with maps and figures from a number of different data sources for monitoring Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) and Marine Heatwaves (MHWs) in the Northeast Pacific and Canadian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off of British Columbia (BC).
These figures are provisional and correctness is not guaranteed. :) These figures update on Monday using the most recent week of data. A limited number of prior images can be found here. Data shown in the figures can be downloaded here (GeoTIFF and .rds format). The climatologies for satellite and buoy data are calculated from the Canadian Climate Normals period of 1991–2020.
- Dataset: NOAA Optimal Interpolation gap-filled SST (OISST)
- Data access: Coastwatch ERDDAP Near-realtime and Science-quality records
- Spatial resolution: 0.25° (~25 km)
- Climatology period: 1991–2020
5-degree intervals are marked as lines on the SST plot (left). On the anomaly plots (right) the lines indicate 1.29 and 2.33 standard deviations above normal (approximately the upper 90th and 99th percentiles relative to the climatology). The BC EEZ is indicated with a dashed line. Points indicate selected stations along Line-P.
➡️ To view map insets near Haida Gwaii click here. ⬅️
The 2024 MHW spatial coverage of the BC EEZ (red) is below, with 2023 coverage shown in grey. The current percent area of the BC EEZ in MHW status at the surface is written in the upper left corner. The same information is shown below for three sub-regions of the BC EEZ: the Offshore Pacific Bioregion (OP, light blue), Northern Shelf Bioregion (NSB, dark blue) and Southern Shelf Bioregion (SSB, yellow). Download the data from this figure here, and view similar plots for previous years here.
- Dataset: Surface temperature observations from Canadian Pacific buoys maintained by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)
- Data access: CIOOS Pacific ERDDAP DFO_MEDS_BUOYS and ECCC_MSC_BUOYS records. The DFO_MEDS_BUOYS record has a detailed quality control layer outlined in Kellogg et al., 2021 which ends in December, 2023
- Climatology period: 1991–2020
The white lines outlined in black are daily mean observations from 2024. The daily mean SST from 2023 at each buoy are shown as coloured lines, plotted over the buoy climatological mean (grey line) with 10th and 90th percentiles (grey shading). The climatology spans 1991–2020, though some buoys began collecting data later: C46146 Halibut Bank, C46131 Sentry Shoal, C46147 South Moresby and C46132 South Brooks. There are no climatologies for C46303 South Georgia Strait and C46304 Entrance English Bay as they were installed in 2019.
➡️ To view 2021–2023 data click here. ⬅️
Note: C46036 South NOMAD is currently returning unrealistic temperature values so is not shown
The start dates listed here may not correspond with other sources (e.g. the ECCC website) but represent the data record available at the sources listed above, as of December 2023. An up-to-date buoy status report can be viewed here: https://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/wbs/bplatstat.html
| Stn ID | Start Date | Longitude | Latitude |
|---|---|---|---|
| C46004 Middle NOMAD | 1988-08-04 | -136.10 | 50.93 |
| C46036 South NOMAD | 1987-09-22 | -133.94 | 48.35 |
| C46131 Sentry Shoal | 1992-10-20 | -124.99 | 49.91 |
| C46132 South Brooks | 1994-05-05 | -127.93 | 49.74 |
| C46145 Central Dixon Entrance | 1991-04-16 | -132.42 | 54.38 |
| C46146 Halibut Bank | 1992-03-13 | -123.73 | 49.34 |
| C46147 South Moresby | 1993-06-17 | -131.23 | 51.83 |
| C46181 Nanakwa Shoal | 1988-11-22 | -128.84 | 53.82 |
| C46183 North Hecate Strait | 1991-05-15 | -131.14 | 53.57 |
| C46184 North NOMAD | 1987-09-20 | -138.85 | 53.92 |
| C46185 South Hecate Strait | 1991-09-12 | -129.79 | 52.42 |
| C46204 West Sea Otter | 1989-09-07 | -128.77 | 51.38 |
| C46205 West Dixon Entrance | 1988-11-22 | -134.32 | 54.19 |
| C46206 La Perouse Bank | 1988-11-22 | -126.00 | 48.83 |
| C46207 East Dellwood | 1989-10-18 | -129.91 | 50.88 |
| C46208 West Moresby | 1990-07-12 | -132.69 | 52.51 |
| C46303 South Georgia Strait* | 2019-10-01 | -123.4300 | 49.02500 |
| C46304 Entrance English Bay* | 2019-10-01 | -123.3570 | 49.30167 |
- Note that these buoys do not have MEDS webpages
Note: this section is deprecated due to the deterioration of MODIS-Aqua. It will be replaced at a later date.
- Dataset: NASA MODIS-Aqua SST
- Data access: Coastwatch ERDDAP Near-realtime and Science-quality records with low-quality pixels removed
- Spatial resolution: 0.04166° (~4 km)
- Climatology period: 2003–2020
Note that pixels with fewer than 2 observations from the week are masked out.
- California Current Marine Heatwave Tracker
- CIOOS Pacific Marine Heatwave Monitor
- Climate Reanalyzer Daily Global Sea Surface Temperature
- Copernicus Climate Indicators
- Copernicus Climate Pulse
- Global daily SST, 7-day trend and anomaly (NOAA CoralReefWatch)
- Marine Heatwaves International Working Group
- Multi-Scale Ultra-High resolution SST Anomaly, Daily *click to view latest image
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- NOAA Marine Heatwave Forecast Monthly Report
- NOAA CoastWatch Data Viewer and CoastWatch commonly used SST data sources
- NOAA Coral Reef Watch: MHW Watch
- NOAA Physical Sciences Lab Map Room: SST
- Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System: Near-Real Time data viewer including Coral Reef Watch SST and SST anomaly
- November 2023 NOAA Slide Deck: Global Ocean Monitoring: Recent Evolution, Current Status, and Predictions
- August 2022 Carbon Brief: Mapped: Attributing extreme weather to climate change
- September 2019 NOAA Fisheries: New Marine Heatwave Emerges off West Coast, Resembles "the Blob"
- September 2019 NOAA Fisheries: Looking Back At The Blob: Record Warming Drives Unprecedented Ocean Change
- California Current Marine Heatwave Tracker: https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/projects/mhw/latest
- CoastWatch ERDDAP Server: https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/index.html
- CIOOS Pacific ERDDAP Server: https://data.cioospacific.ca/erddap/index.html
- Galbraith, P.S., Larouche, P. & Caverhill, C. (2021): A Sea-Surface Temperature Homogenization Blend for the Northwest Atlantic, Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, doi:10.1080/07038992.2021.1924645
- Hobday, A.J., Alexander, L., Perkins, S., Smale, D.A., Straub, S., Oliver, E., Benthuysen, J.A., Burrows, M., Donat, M.G., Feng, M., Holbrook, N.J., Moore, P.J., Scannell, H., Sen Gupta, A. & Wernberg, T. (2016): A hierarchical approach to defining marine heatwaves. Progress in Oceanography. 141, 227-238, doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2015.12.014
- Hobday, A.J., Oliver, E.C.J., Sen Gupta, A., Benthuysen, J.A., Burrows, M.T., Donat, M.G., Holbrook, N.J., Moore, P.J., Thomsen, M.S., Wernberg, T., & Smale, D.A. (2018): Categorizing and naming marine heatwaves. Oceanography 31(2):162–173, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2018.205
- Kellogg, J., Rosenstock, N., Page, S., Hourston, R., Devred, E. and Hannah, C. (2021): Quality Control of Weather/Wave Buoy Temperature Data Provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada. CIOOS Pacific. https://catalogue.cioospacific.ca/dataset/ca-cioos_b9c71eb2-b750-43d5-a50a-aee173916736
For other reading on Marine Heatwaves, check out the reference list here!