Title State of the marine environment off South Africa: July 2008
Authors

Oceans and Coastal Research
Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE)

Publisher Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (2019)
Contributors

Contact Person: Jimmy Khanyile
Oceans and Coastal Research, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), email: Jkhanyile@environment.gov.za

Abstract Please note: 1. This report has not been peer-reviewed; 2. The conditions of use outlined in the report are superseded by the conditions specified by the License field in this metadata record; 3. The contact information included in the report is superseded by the contact information that can be found in the Responsible Parties field of this metadata record.This is the fourth in a series of informal biannual reports introduced in December 2006, intended to provide an overview of marine environmental conditions off South Africa. The reports are based on data from a variety of sources, including web sources, satellite sensors, the South African Weather Service, MCM's coastal and moored instruments and MCM's research cruises and inherent to all of these there is an inevitable lag between the time of data capture and the time when the data first become available for use. The lags are all different. For example, wind data from the Cape Point lighthouse is updated monthly, the moored temperature recorders are serviced every three months and the time series of satellite data are updated at irregular intervals resulting in lags which may be as long as a year or, in some cases, even several years. Therefore, while it is the aim that the environmental reports should reflect the conditions that prevailed over the months leading up to the reporting date, some out-of-date series are incorporated because they provide information on long-term trends which would otherwise not be available, but always with the intention of reducing the lag period as much as possible.With this issue of the report no additional environmental parameters are introduced but the time series of dissolved nutrient concentrations (nitrate, phosphate and silicate) for St. Helena Bay, first incorporated in the previous report, was brought up to date. It is, however, recognized that this is not representative of the South African coast and that reporting of nutrient concentrations must be extended to several more locations.
Data
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Temporal extent 01 Jan 2008 – 30 Jun 2008
Geographic extent

North: -23.77
South: -45.95
West: 10.06
East: 44.57

Keywords Anchovy, Cape Columbine, Cape Point, Chlorophyll-a, Ekman upwelling indices, El Niño Southern Oscillation Index, Hondeklip Bay, larvae, nitrate, oxygen, phosphate, Phytoplankton, Plettenberg Bay, red eye egg, sardine, Sea Surface Temperature, SHBML, silicate, Sodwana Bay, South Africa, SST, St. Helena Bay Monitoring Line, State of the Marine Environment, State of the Ocean, Tsitsikamma, Wind