Monitoring ocean warming in Australian regions is crucial for understanding extreme events such as marine heatwaves (MHW) and their ecological consequences. Recent advancements in satellite technology enable high-resolution monitoring of sea surface temperatures (SST), providing critical insights for research, climate modelling, and understanding coastal processes.

AusTemp is a remote sensing application delivering near real-time marine heat stress and MHW monitoring metrics for Australian coasts (100-165°E, 7-46°S). These new and updated thermal stress metrics include SST, SST anomalies, Degree Heating Days (DHD), Degree Heating Days Counts (DHDC), while MHW and marine cold spells (MCS) monitoring metrics include MHW category and Marine Cold Spells (MCS) category defined using 1-day SST and 14-day mosaic SST products.

The 10-minute temporal resolution of the Himawari-8/9 SST data enables a daily composite with enhanced spatial coverage, effectively filling SST gaps caused by transient clouds. Skin SST retrievals from geostationary infrared radiometers on Himawari-8/9 and polar-orbiting satellites are composited over multiple swaths/scenes and gridded on a 0.02° rectangular grid over the Australian domain to produce a GeoPolar MultiSensor Level 3 Super-collated (L3S) SST product. This SST product is used to define AusTemp metrics, along with the SST Atlas of Australian Regional Seas (SSTAARS) daily climatology as the baseline.

We will present case studies alongside validation of AusTemp metrics, which have been assessed against biological datasets and demonstrated across various regions in Australia. The enhanced spatial and temporal resolution of the L3S SST product enables detailed mapping of MHWs, supporting assessments of localised ecological impacts such as coral bleaching and marine species mortality. The tools have utility across conservation, reef management, aquaculture and fisheries sectors, supporting effective management of marine heatwave impacts in a warming ocean.

Biography:

Pallavi Govekar is a Research Scientist at the Science and Innovation, Bureau of Meteorology. Her expertise spans oceanography, climatology, and meteorology, with a strong focus on satellite remote sensing.  Pallavi leads IMOS Sea Surface Temperature (SST) sub-facility where she is driving the research and development of advanced satellite derived SST products of benefit to numerical weather prediction, seasonal forecasting and ocean forecasting. Pallavi’s work is focused on helping the modelling community to better understand surface conditions and developing and delivering downstream applications for marine and coastal industry.