SOPhyE satellite data processing technical report series. 2, Refining the Maritimes AZMP box boundaries using self-organizing maps (SOMs) / by Melanie Hardy, Emmanuel Devred.: Fs97-18/387E-PDF

"Chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a) derived from satellite ocean colour has been used to report on phytoplankton biomass in the Maritimes Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program (AZMP) at five key areas on the Scotian Shelf, namely, Georges Bank (GB), Central Scotian Shelf (CSS), Eastern Scotian Shelf (ESS),Western Scotian Shelf (WSS), and Lurcher Shoals (LS). For practical reasons, the areas were defined as rectangles that did not necessarily account for the effect of local hydrodynamic processes on the distribution of phytoplankton biomass. As a result, variation in Chl-a concentration may not reflect phytoplankton local dynamics but rather changes in water masses that may be amplified by cloud cover. A Self-Organizing Map (SOM) approach was applied to satellite-derived seasonal sea-surface temperature (SST) and Chl-a to identify the main patterns in phytoplankton dynamics on the Scotian Shelf in relation to physical forcing, and to redefine the boundaries of the AZMP Maritime boxes. The updated polygons had similar mean seasonal SST and Chl-a than the original boxes but with reduced variability as supported by smaller interquartile range. The updated polygons did not encroach on coastal areas that exhibit systematically high Chl-a as a result of contamination of the marine satellite signal by terrigenous inputs. Comparisons of the bloom metrics between the original boxes and the new SOM-derived polygons showed less extreme values in bloom characteristics for the SOM-derived polygons"--Abstract, page vi.

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