Spatial and temporal variability of internal wave forcing on a coral reef

The deployment of a dense spatial array of temperature sensors on a coral reef in the Florida Keys provided a unique view of the interaction of cool water incursions generated by internal waves with the three-dimensional reef bathymetry. Water temperature on the reef surface was sampled every 5 s at 100 points on a 100 m by 150 m grid with concomitant measurements of water column velocity and temperature from mid-May through mid-August 2003. Episodic incursions of cool, subsurface water were driven by periods of strong semidiurnal internal tide and higher-frequency internal wave activity. For every time step in the data record the mean profile of temperature as a function of depth is calculated with a 3-m vertical averaging length scale. Subtracting this mean profile from the raw record yields a within depth, horizontal temperature anomaly. Visualization through time of the anomaly mapped onto the measured reef bathymetry reveals episodic variability of thermal patchiness across the reef as well as persistent features associated with reef bathymetry. Variation in the nature of the cooling and resulting thermal heterogeneity among events and seasons suggests multiple modes of cool water incursion ranging from unbroken, tidal period internal waves to packets of higher-frequency, energetic, broken internal bores.