Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program: Water Chemistry of the Coral Reefs across the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands from Water Samples collected from 2012 to 2014

Water samples are collected and analyzed to assess spatial and temporal variation in the seawater carbonate systems of coral reef ecosystems in the Hawaiian and Mariana Archipelagos, American Samoa, and the Pacific Remote Island Areas as part of the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP).

Laboratory experiments reveal calcification rates of crustose coralline algae (CCA) are strongly correlated to seawater aragonite saturation state. Predictions of reduced coral calcification rates, due to ocean acidification, suggest that coral reef communities will undergo ecological phase shifts as calcifying organisms are negatively impacted by changing seawater chemistry.

The data described here are from water samples collected at existing, long-term monitoring sites during NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) led NCRMP missions around the American Samoa and the Pacific Remote Island Areas in 2012, the Hawaiian Archipelago in 2013, and Wake Island and the Mariana Archipelago in 2014. Two water samples are typically collected from each site—one at the reef and one at the surface directly above the reef—and a third sample may also be collected approximately 1 km offshore from the site. The samples are processed by ESD and sent to NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) to be analyzed for total alkalinity (TA) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). From these constituents, alongside temperature, salinity, and depth data, other constituents of the seawater carbonate system can be calculated. These monitoring data provide a baseline for tracking reef carbonate system changes due to globally increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) details a long term approach to provide an ecosystem perspective via monitoring climate, fish, benthic, and socioeconomic variables in a consistent and integrated manner. The NCRMP is intended to coordinate various NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) biological, physical, and human dimensions activities into a cohesive NOAA-wide effort. Through the implementation of the NCRMP, NOAA will be able to clearly and concisely communicate results of national-scale monitoring to national, state, and territorial policy makers, resource managers, and the public on a periodic basis.

To support a long-term Coral Reef Conservation Program for sustainable management and conservation of coral reef ecosystems and the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP), total alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon are measured to calculate various inorganic carbon system parameters that influence coral reef ecosystems monitored by the PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD). SCUBA divers take discrete water samples at the benthos and at the surface at forereef study sites established by the ongoing Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP).

The 2013 and 2014 data overlap with the following NCRMP accessions:

- Hawaiian Archipelago 2013: Accession 0157714, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/36067

- Wake Island, Pacific Remote Island Areas 2014: Accession 0159171, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/36065

- Mariana Archipelago 2014: Accession 0157715, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/36066

The National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) is a framework for conducting sustained observations of biological, climate, and socioeconomic indicators at 10 priority coral reefs across the U.S. and its territories. This integrated approach will consolidate monitoring of coral reefs under a uniform method in the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. NCRMP is funded by the CRCP and supported by NOAA Fisheries, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), and many other partners. The PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) at NOAA Fisheries is leading ocean and climate change monitoring in the U.S. Pacific Islands Region.

The climate component of NCRMP in the Pacific provides a comprehensive view of climate change impacts on coral reef ecosystems and helps identify areas of resilience and vulnerability. The key indicators used to identify and monitor climate-driven trends include 1) thermal stress caused by changes in sea temperature, 2) ocean acidification resulting from changes in carbonate chemistry, and 3) ecological impacts by collecting data on coral growth rates, erosion, and community structure to understand the impacts of thermal stress and ocean acidification on the ecosystem. Each year, ESD scientists work closely with CRCP and partners during Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) missions to collect data using moored oceanographic (subsurface temperature recorders) and ecological (calcification accretion units [CAUs] and autonomous reef monitoring structures [ARMS]) instruments stationed at fixed sites in the Pacific Ocean, and water samples collected by divers. The in-situ data and satellite-based observations are also used in modeling efforts. Innovative analysis techniques are used to develop products that give fellow scientists, managers, decision makers and the public a better understanding of a region’s resources and how they are changing over time.

A data dictionary describing each column provided in the data set is included in the NCEI archive package as a comma-separated file. The columns provided in the dataset include: Year, RegionCode, Location, REA_Site, Cruise, ShallowCTDID, CastType, Latitude, Longitude, UTCDateTime, Sample_Depth_(m), DIC, DIC_QC, TA, TA_QC, Conductivity_S/m, Salinity_PSU, Temperature_DegC, Pressure_db, and Density_Sigmat.

While every effort has been made to ensure that these data are accurate and reliable within the limits of the current state of the art, NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages caused by errors or omissions in the data, nor as a result of the failure of the data to function on a particular system. NOAA makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty.

Mariana Archipelago including Guam, Rota, Tinian, Aguijan, Saipan, Sarigan, Guguan, Alamagan, Pagan, Asuncion, Maug, and Farallon de Pajaros.

American Samoa including Tutuila, Manu'a (Ofo, Olosega, and Ta'u), Rose Atoll, and Swains.

Hawaiian Archipelago including the main Hawaiian Islands (Hawaii, Kauai, Maui, Oahu, Molokai, Niihau, and Lanai), and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (French Frigate Shoals, Lisianski, Pearl and Hermes, and Kure).

Pacific Remote Island Areas (PRIA) including Baker, Howland, Jarvis, and Wake islands, Kingman Reef, and Johnston and Palmyra atolls. Wake Island is routinely surveyed as part of the Mariana Archipelago RAMP (MARAMP) missions, whereas the remaining six PRIA are surveyed as part of the American Samoa RAMP (ASRAMP) missions (Johnston, Baker and Howland during the first leg of ASRAMP, and Jarvis, Kingman, and Palmyra during the last leg of ASRAMP).

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Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Data Sharing Recommendations, version 9.0 updated August 12, 2015:

CREP welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on research issues contributing to the scientific basis for better management of marine ecosystems. CREP has a very diverse set of field activities that generates large volumes of data using an array of data collection protocols.

The following recommendations are for your consideration as you use this data:

1) Data analyses should take all field exigencies into account. The most effective way to do this would be active collaboration with CREP principal investigators.

2) In all presentations, product releases, or publications using data generated by CREP, proper acknowledgement of both CREP and the individuals responsible for data collection is expected. Citing the DOI (if available) is preferred, a non-DOI example is listed below.

3) If you collect or generate data for the same study areas, CREP requests that you share relevant information on complimentary data collections.

4) Those receiving data are strongly urged to inform the CREP Data Management Team of any errors and discrepancies that are discovered during the course of using these data. They are further urged to bring to the attention of the Team all problems and difficulties encountered in using these data. This information is necessary in order to improve the collections and to facilitate more efficient and economical data processing and retrieval. The users are asked to supply copies of any missing data that may be located, and to provide information as to significant subsets and special aggregations of data that are developed in using the material provided.

Example citation:

"This publication makes use of data products provided by the Ecosystem Sciences Division, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with funding support from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program. The analysis and interpretations presented here are solely that of the current authors”

Data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

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Please cite PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) when using the data.

Suggested Citation:

Ecosystem Sciences Division; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2016). Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program: Water Chemistry of the Coral Reefs across the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands from Water Samples collected from 2012 to 2014. NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/25253.

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Microsoft Access 2007

Accuracy of laboratory analysis is explained in detail in Dickson et al (2007).

Since the carbonate system can vary on a diurnal scale and not all samples are taken at the exact same time of day, considering the time a sample was taken may be important for some analyses. However, because all samples are taken between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, variation due to diurnal change is expected to be small.

All analyzed samples are included.

The data are very consistent, sample collection and processing protocols are adhered to very rigorously, both in the field and in the lab.

PMEL conducts quality assurance and quality control on their analyses; the precision and accuracy of DIC analyses are on the order of ± 0.05% and TA analyses are on the order of ± 0.1% in a laboratory setting.

Data quality flags are provided by NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and included in the dataset. These flags indicate if something went wrong with the analytical equipment or with the processing of the samples. PMEL uses the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) data quality flag system, where '2's correspond to good values, '3's to questionable data, and '4's to bad data. Most water samples collected by the PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division and analyzed by PMEL in this dataset received a '2' data quality flag and the remainder were flagged as questionable ('3').

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.

PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) assembles carbonate chemistry information from discrete seawater samples analyzed for two parameters: 1) Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC), which in some literature is defined as Total Carbon (CT), and 2) Total Alkalinity (TA or AT). The carbonate system is influenced by seawater salinity, temperature, pressure, and the dissolved nutrients silicate (SiO44-) and phosphate (PO43-).

All carbonate system collection and measurement methodologies follow the protocols accepted by the greater scientific community and outlined in Dickson et al. (2007)