Office of Marine Ecosystem Studies

Office of MArine Ecosystem Studies

Ecosystem Indices

OMES is developing a range of ecosystem indicators for use in ecosystem assessment and modeling. Ecosystem management requires assessment of target resource species, such as complexes of finfish or invertebrate species, and the assessment of the ecosystems that support those resources. The physical and biological aspects of the ecosystem critical to growth and recruitment can be measured by direct observation or via telemetry methods including remotely sensed data.

Long Term Sea Surface Temperature Trends

Indices of mean sea surface temperature are computed for seven sub-regions of the Northeast Shelf ecosystem. The indices are derived from the extended reconstructed sea surface temperature (ERSST) version 2 dataset prepared by the National Climatic Data Center. Sub-regions were selected based on an ordination of the raw data. The map below shows the sub-regions and is a gateway to time series plots of SST for each area. Smooth line on these plots is a FFT Filter.

Click on an area and the graph will open in a new window

The figure below shows the annual temperature cycle for each of the areas. Each band represents the 95% confidence interval for monthly mean SST.

Frontal Probability

Thermal fronts can be identified from a number of different sea surface temperature products including high-resolution satellite imagery. We are currently evaluating whether frontal probability, or the proportion of frontal pixels to resolvable pixels, is a useful ecosystem indictor. The figure below shows frontal probability for the eastern and western portions of the Gulf of Maine for July. Frontal development varies by region, season, and inter-annually making it potentially an important determinant of distribution and feeding opportunities for a range of resource species. These data are from the frontal analysis conducted Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island.

For further information, contact Kevin Friedland: kevin.friedland@noaa.gov

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(Modified Jan. 03 2007)