Climate refugia for rainforests: Maximum temperature of the warmest period

This dataset shows the estimated maximum temperature of the warmest period for the Wet Tropics Bioregion of North Queensland over a 24 month period from January 2007 to December 2008. It was modelled based on weather station data, elevation, foliage cover and distance to the coast. The purpose of this dataset is as a metric for estimating thermal stress on animals living in this region.

The maximum temperate was modelled over the region at an 80 m resolution using weather station data with adjustments for elevation, foliage cover and distance from the coast. This allowed the temperature to be estimated for locations where there were no direct measurements of temperature. Models of the maximum temperature for each month of the study were generated. These 24 monthly surfaces were then overlaid and the maximum model temperature for any month was determined for each pixel to generate a summary variable - the maximum temperature of the warmest period (i.e., month).

A detailed description of data and methods are provided in: Shoo, L.P., Storlie, C., VanDerWal, J., Little, J., Williams, S.E. Targeted protection and restoration to conserve tropical biodiversity in a warming world. Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02218.x.