“…Altimetry data have been seldom used to study coral reef processes, even in a sea level rise era that may affect coral reef communities and islands. They have been useful to assess the physical environment (wave, tide, circulation, lagoon water renewal) around islands and reefs (e.g., Tartinville and Rancher, 2000;Andréfouët et al, 2001Andréfouët et al, , 2012Burrage et al, 2003;Gallop et al, 2014), or explain larval connectivity and offshore physical transport between reefs (e.g., Christie et al, 2010), but this is the first time to our knowledge that altimetry data, including the new SARAL/AltiKa data, are related to a coral ecology event. Different measures of sea level and sea level anomalies confirmed an anomalous situation following the development of the 2015-2016 El Niño, resulting in lower sea level regionally averaging 8 cm in the north of Sulawesi compared to the previous 4 years (Fig.…”