Abstract
A study was conducted to investigate the influence of Asian monsoon on chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) content in Sabah waters and to identify the related oceanographic conditions that caused phytoplankton blooms at the eastern and western coasts of Sabah, Malaysia. A series of remote sensing measurements including surface Chl-a, sea surface temperature, sea surface height anomaly, wind speed, wind stress curl, and Ekman pumping were analyzed to study the oceanographic conditions that lead to large-scale nutrients enrichment in the surface layer. The results showed that the Chl-a content increased at the northwest coast from December to April due to strong northeasterly wind and coastal upwelling in Kota Kinabalu water. The southwest coast (Labuan water) maintained high concentrations throughout the year due to the effect of Padas River discharge during the rainy season and the changing direction of Baram River plume during the northeast monsoon (NEM). However, with the continuous supply of nutrients from the upwelling area, the high Chl-a batches were maintained at the offshore water off Labuan for a longer time during NEM. On the other side, the northeast coast illustrated a high Chl-a in Sandakan water during NEM, whereas the northern tip off Kudat did not show a pronounced change throughout the year. The southeast coast (Tawau water) was highly influenced by the direction of the surface water transport between the Sulu and Sulawesi Seas and the prevailing surface currents. The study demonstrates the presence of seasonal phytoplankton blooms in Sabah waters which will aid in forecasting the possible biological response and could further assist in marine resource managements.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the MODIS Aqua project and the Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at the Goddard Space Flight Center for the production and distribution of remotely sensed Chl-a and SST data. We also thank Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), which is sponsored by the NASA Ocean Vector Winds Science Team, for providing QuikScat wind speed data; NOAA for FNMOC wind stress and curl data; and the Malaysian Meteorological Service (MMS) for the rainfall data. Besides, we gratefully acknowledge the Naval Research Laboratory (code 7320) and the Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) project for providing the surface current over SSH data sets through http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/. The altimetry data used are produced by Ssalto/Duacs and distributed by AVISO, with support from Cnes. We would like to express our gratitude to Jason Roberts (Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools) and Deborah (Remote Sensing System) for providing helpful comments and suggestions for this work. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their critical and helpful reviews during an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Abdul-Hadi, A., Mansor, S., Pradhan, B. et al. Seasonal variability of chlorophyll-a and oceanographic conditions in Sabah waters in relation to Asian monsoon—a remote sensing study. Environ Monit Assess 185, 3977–3991 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2843-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2843-2