Physical Processes Determine Spatial Structure in Water Temperature and Residence Time on a Wide Reef Flat

On coral reefs, flow determines residence time of water influencing physical and chemical environments and creating observable microclimates within the reef structure. Understanding the physical mechanisms driving environmental variability on shallow reefs, which distinguishes them from the open ocean, is important for understanding what contributes to thermal resilience of coral communities and predicting their response to future anomalies. In June 2014, a field experiment conducted at Dongsha Atoll in the northern South China Sea investigated the physical forces that drive flow over a broad shallow reef flat. Instrumentation included current and pressure sensors and a distributed temperature sensing system, which resolved spatially and temporally continuous temperature measurements over a 3‐km cross‐reef section from the lagoon to reef crest. Spectral analysis shows that while diurnal variability was significant across the reef flat—a result expected from daily solar heating—temperature also varied at higher frequencies near the reef crest. These spatially variable temperature regimes, or thermal microclimates, are influenced by circulation on the wide reef flat, with spatially and temporally variable contributions from tides, wind, and waves. Through particle tracking simulations, we find the residence time of water is shorter near the reef crest (3.6 h) than near the lagoon (8.6 h). Tidal variability in flow direction on the reef flat leads to patterns in residence time that are different than what would be predicted from unidirectional flow. Circulation on the reef also determines the source (originating from offshore vs. the lagoon) of the water present on the reef flat.