River discharge **data** for the Tully River were obtained from the Queensland Bureau of Meteorology (http://www.bom.gov. au). No long-term in situ salinity **data** are available from King Reef; therefore, **data** from the Carton-Giese Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) reanalysis project were chosen as a longterm monthly resolution SSS dataset. This consists of a combination of observed and modeled **data** (Carton et al., 2000). Data were obtained from the box centered on 17.5°S (17.25°-17.75°) and 146°E (145.75°-146.25°). SODA version 1.4.2 extends from 1958 to 2001 and uses surface wind products from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 40-year reanalysis (ECMWF ERA 40), which may contain inaccuracies in tropical regions (Cahyarini et al., 2008). The most recent version of SODA (1.4.3) now uses wind **data** from the Quick-Scat scatterometer, thus providing more accurate **data** for the tropics (Cahyarini et al., 2008;Carton and Giese, 2008 