| Title | State of the marine environment off South Africa: December 2007 |
|---|---|
| Authors |
Oceans and Coastal Research |
| Publisher | Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (2019) |
| Contributors |
Contact Person: Jimmy Khanyile |
| 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 This report has not been peer-reviewed; 2. The conditions of use outlined in the report are superseded by the conditions specified by the License field in this metadata record; 3. The contact information included in the report is superseded by the contact information that can be found in the Responsible Parties field of this metadata record.This is the third in a series of informal biannual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reports should reflect the conditions which prevailed over the months leading up to the reporting date, some out-of-date series are incorporated because they provide information on long-term trends which would otherwise not be available, but always with the intention of reducing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 four additional and important environmental parameters have been introduced, in the form of (a)Wind data from the Quickscat satellite's scatterometer, (b) dissolved nutrients (nitrate, phosphate and silicate) concentrations, (c)zooplankton data from the Mossel Bay monitoring line and (d) primary production data from the West Coast. The scatterometer data not only provide wind information all along the coast but can also be used to calculate upwelling indices. The nutrient series are currently very much out of date and also only presented for St Helena Bay but it is an important addition considering the lack of marine chemistry in the preceding issues of the report and it is hoped that the situation will improve in the near future. The report has also suffered from a shortage of biological information in the past, hence the addition of the Mossel Bay zooplankton and west coast primary production, represents a significant improvement. |
| Data | |
| Temporal extent | 01 Jul 2007 – 31 Dec 2007 |
| Geographic extent |
North: -23.77 |
| Keywords | Agulhas Bank, anchovy, Cape Columbine, Cape Point wind, chlorophyll-a, Ekman upwelling indices, El Niño Southern Oscillation Index, Hondeklip Bay, larvae, MBML, oxygen, Phytoplankton, Plettenberg Bay, sardine, SARP, sea surface temperature, SHBML, Sodwana Bay, South Africa, SST, St Helena Island, St Helena Island Index, St. Helena Bay, St. Helena Bay Monitoring Line, State of the Marine Environment, State of the Ocean, Tsitsikamma, wind, Zooplankton |