Modelling the relationship of sea surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll a concentration (CHL-A) using modis remote sensing data / Nurul Nadiah Abdul Ghafar

• Main Author: Abdul Ghafar, Nurul Nadiah
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Remote Sensing
• Online Access: https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/100724/1/100724.pdf; https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/100724/

Sea surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a) are two important parameters for oceanography and marine meteorology that need to be frequently studied and reviewed as a result of ocean dynamics and geodynamics phenomena such as Tsunami's and Hurricane, which may have great impact in due period of time. SST is water temperature close to the ocean surface whilst Chl-a concentration is that variable concerning the amount of green pigment found in phytoplankton. The intent of the study is to determine and interpret the seasonal variation of SST and Chl-a concentration by using two method which is through in situ measurement and satellite image data consist of 25 station along Kuala Terengganu waters. In situ measurement was taken at near shore data through four days of observation starting from 11 June until 14 June 2015 while satellite image data was taken for twelve years observation starting from 2004 until 2015 at near shore and open waters using Terra MODIS level 3 standard mapped image (SMI). From the result of both method, it is found that SST and Chl-a concentration is based on season dependence. In situ data were taken at near shore area were used to validate the data from MODIS image, however, the data from MODIS shows there is no significant relationship between two variables at the area. To investigate further about this, regression analysis for SST and Chl-a has been analyzed and it was found out that there is no correlation between SST and Chl-a from MODIS data with the correlation coefficient being 0.03524757 with p value is 0.86716. Since the MODIS data has proven that there is no correlation between both variables, the data from in situ measurement has the ability to predict unknown values of SST and Chl-a around sample point by using Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and Kriging method. Two methods were then compared and the result shows that SST and Chl-a at the surface of the ocean (0.5meter) has fit the model the most by having the lowest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). Overall, from the analysis it were recognized that the temperature of SST is higher during dry season (May to September) while Chl-a is vice versa. Moreover, the trend of SST is similar at near shore and open waters while the concentration of Chl-a in Malaysia peninsular is always lower due to the geoparameter factor that Malaysia is located at shallow shelf of Sunda. Although Chla is recorded lower due its geoparameter factor, Chl-a distribution varies from near shore to open waters. It was found that Chl-a at coastal or near shore area has higher concentration of Chl-a with 5.4752 mg/m3. Basically the SST and Chl-a is porportionally inverse during dry and wet season. Higher Chl-a concentration at the area shown by the decrease of temperature indicates that Chl-a is actively bloom at the time