Diurnal cycles of cloud and rainfall over North-East Queensland during the coral bleaching season

Chapman, Alanah; Huang, Yi; Vincent, Claire

doi:10.5194/wcd-7-1265-2026

Articles | Volume 7, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-7-1265-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-7-1265-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 7, issue 3

Research article

|

21 Jul 2026

Research article |

| 21 Jul 2026

Diurnal cycles of cloud and rainfall over North-East Queensland during the coral bleaching season

Alanah Chapman, Yi Huang, and Claire Vincent

Data sets

Himawari-8 GeoCat 1.0.3 Australian Domain Level 2 v1.0 C. Lopez-Bravo, C.-L. Vincent, and Y. Huang https://geonetwork.nci.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/f7783_3730_7872_1101

Australian Operational Weather Radar Level 2 Dataset J. Soderholm et al. https://geonetwork.nci.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/f8188_7912_6774_5057

Model code and software

Code for Diurnal cycles of cloud and rainfall over North--East Queensland during the coral bleaching season A. Chapman https://github.com/alanah-chapman/diurnal-cylces-of-clouds-and-rainfall-over-NE-QLD-during-CBS

Interactive computing environment

Code for Diurnal cycles of cloud and rainfall over North–East Queensland during the coral bleaching season Alanah Chapman https://github.com/alanah-chapman/diurnal-cylces-of-clouds-and-rainfall-over-NE-QLD-during-CBS

Short summary

Mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef is driven by unusually warm ocean temperatures, but cloud cover also plays a critical role by regulating how much sunlight reaches the ocean. This study examines daily patterns of clouds and rainfall over north-east Queensland during bleaching seasons using satellite, radar, and regional weather data. Clouds and rainfall patterns differ between land, ocean and wind conditions, helping improve understanding of processes influencing reef heat stress.