Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Research Article

Statistical Analysis of Sea Surface Temperature and Chlorophyll-a Concentration Patterns in the Gulf of Tadjourah (Djibouti)

Youssouf MO^1,2*, Laurent M² and Xavier C³

¹Centre for Study and Research in Djibouti Airport Road, PO Box 486, Djibouti

²UMR6539 UBO/CNRS/IRD/Ifremer European University Institute of the Sea (IUEM) Technopole Brest Iroise, 29280 Plouzane, France

³University of Western Brittany (UBO) UMR 6523 CNRS/IFREMER/UBO Physics Laboratory of the Ocean, IUEM, Plouzané, France

*Corresponding Author:

Youssouf MO
Centre for Study and Research in Djibouti Airport Road
PO Box 486, Djibouti
Tel: + 25377262108
E-mail: assoum_omar42@yahoo.fr

Received Date: January 14, 2016; Accepted Date: February 29, 2016; Published Date: March 07, 2016

Citation: Youssouf MO, Laurent M, Xavier C (2016) Statistical Analysis of Sea Surface Temperature and Chlorophyll-a Concentration Patterns in the Gulf of Tadjourah (Djibouti). J Marine Sci Res Dev 6:186. doi: 10.4172/2155-9910.1000186

Copyright: © 2016 Youssouf MO, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

The sea surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll-a concentration (CHL-a) were analysed in the Gulf of Tadjourah from two set of 8-day composite satellite data, respectively from 2008 to 2012 and from 2005 to 2011. A singular spectrum analysis (SSA) shows that the annual cycle of SST is strong (74.3% of variance) and consists of warming (April-October) and cooling (November-March) of about 2.5C than the long-term average. The semi-annual cycle captures only 14.6% of temperature variance and emphasises the drop of SST during July-August. Similarly, the annual cycle of CHL-a (29.7% of variance) depicts high CHL-a from June to October and low concentration from November to May. In addition, the first spatial empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of SST (93% of variance) shows that the seasonal warming/cooling is in phase across the whole study area but the southeastern part always remaining warmer or cooler. In contrast to the SST, the first EOF of CHL-a (54.1% of variance) indicates the continental shelf in phase opposition with the offshore area in winter during which the CHL-a remains sequestrated in the coastal area particularly in the south-east and in the Ghoubet Al-Kharab Bay. Inversely during summer, higher CHL-a quantities appear in the offshore waters. In order to investigate processes generating these patterns, a multichannel spectrum analysis was applied to a set of oceanic (SST, CHL-a) and atmospheric parameters (wind speed, air temperature and air specific humidity). This analysis shows that the SST is well correlated to the atmospheric parameters at an annual scale. The windowed cross correlation indicates that this correlation is significant only from October to May. During this period, the warming was related to the solar heating of the surface water when the wind is low (April-May and October) while the cooling (November-March) was linked to the strong and cold North-East winds and to convective mixing. The summer drop in SST followed by a peak of CHL-a, seems strongly correlated to the upwelling. The second EOF modes of SST and CHL-a explain respectively 1.3% and 5% of the variance and show an east-west gradient during winter that is reversed during summer. This work showed that the seasonal signals have a wide spatial influence and dominate the variability of the SST and CHL-a while the east-west gradient are specific for the Gulf of Tadjourah and seem induced by the local wind modulated by the topography.

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