Standard Presentation (12 minutes) Australian Marine Sciences Association 2025 Conference

SSTee: Multidecadal spatiotemporal fusion of MODIS and Landsat SST (119780)

Stan Mastrantonis 1 2 3 , Simon de Lestang 4 , John Duncan 1 2 , Ben Radford 5 , Tim Langlois 3 , Sharyn M Hickey 1 2
  1. School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
  2. Centre for Water and Spatial Science, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
  3. Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
  4. Western Australian Fisheries and Marine Research Laboratories, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, North Beach, WA, Australia
  5. Australian Institute of Marine Science, Crawley, WA, Australia

Marine Heat Waves are prolonged events of extreme ocean heat that can severely impact marine ecosystems, habitats, and fish stocks. Coordinated efforts to monitor MHWs and their effects began after an extreme heat event off the coast of Western Australia in 2011.  Monitoring MHWs relies on thermal Earth observation sensors with coarse spatial resolutions (i.e., MODIS AQUA; ~4km × 4km) but provide frequent observations or fine-resolution sensors (i.e., Landsat; 60m) but provide infrequent observations. Here, we present a method, integrated with Google Earth Engine, for downscaling the MODIS AQUA inventory at a near-daily temporal resolution using the Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM). We apply the SSTee model for four sites across the West Australian coast, all of which have been monitored with in-situ SST loggers since 2001. Finer resolution SST products, in both time and space, are required to inform management on the extent and duration of MHWs at scales relevant for monitoring coastal habitats and oceanographic processes. Given that oceans are experiencing accelerated warming due to climate change, SSTee provides a potential solution to the current limitations of ocean thermal remote sensing.