Distribution of floating Sargassum in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean mapped using MERIS

We used satellite imagery from the European Space Agency (ESA) Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) optical sensor to make the first mapping of the full distribution and movement of the population of Sargassum in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic. For most of the years for which we have data (2002 to 2008), the results show a seasonal pattern in which Sargassum originates in the northwest Gulf of Mexico in the spring of each year, and is then advected into the Atlantic. The Sargassum appears east of Cape Hatteras as a ‘Sargassum jet’ in July and ends northeast of the Bahamas in February of the following year. This pattern is consistent with historical surveys from ships. MERIS provides a spectral band that greatly improves the discrimination of floating vegetation from confusing signals such as cloud and sunglint.

[1]  J. Gower,et al.  Interpretation of the 685nm peak in water-leaving radiance spectra in terms of fluorescence, absorption and scattering, and its observation by MERIS , 1999 .

[2]  Leslie Brown,et al.  The importance of a band at 709 nm for interpreting water-leaving spectral radiance , 2008 .

[3]  Dario Tarchi,et al.  Long term monitoring of oil spills in European seas , 2009 .

[4]  J. Gower,et al.  Detection of intense plankton blooms using the 709 nm band of the MERIS imaging spectrometer , 2005 .

[5]  Chuanmin Hu,et al.  Ocean Color Satellites Show Extensive Lines of Floating Sargassum in the Gulf of Mexico , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[6]  Richard L. White,et al.  DECISION TREES FOR AUTOMATED IDENTIFICATION OF COSMIC-RAY HITS IN HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE IMAGES , 1995 .

[7]  Anatoly A. Gitelson,et al.  Remote sensing of chlorophyll in Lake Kinneret using highspectral-resolution radiometer and Landsat TM: spectral features of reflectance and algorithm development , 1995 .

[8]  Ö. Winge,et al.  The Sargasso Sea, its boundaries and vegetation , 1923 .

[9]  A. H. Woodcock.  Winds subsurface pelagic Sargassum and Langmuir circulations , 1993 .

[10]  Allan W. Stoner,et al.  Pelagic Sargassum: Evidence for a major decrease in biomass , 1983 .

[11]  Andrew M. Fischer,et al.  A coastal ocean extreme bloom incubator , 2008 .

[12]  Anatoly A. Gitelson,et al.  The peak near 700 nm on radiance spectra of algae and water: relationships of its magnitude and position with chlorophyll concentration , 1992 .

[13]  R. David,et al.  SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF HABITAT USE BY FISHES ASSOCIATED WITH SARGASSUM MATS IN THE NORTHWESTERN GULF OF MEXICO , 2004 .

[14]  Allan W. Stoner,et al.  Pelagic Sargassum: has its biomass changed in the last 50 years? , 1984 .

[15]  M. Rast,et al.  The ESA Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer MERIS a review of the instrument and its mission , 1999 .