Satellite Derived Measurements of Coastal Water Chlorophyll-a Variability

Variability of Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) were intensively investigated at the coastal water inPahang Malaysia. Data of Chl-a derived from Aqua MODIS satellite at 1 km spatial resolution from January 2006 to December 2010 was processed to climatological images. The seasonal progressions of Chl-a distribution during the monsoon period shows that high values were detected during the Northeast monsoon and spread over a wide region. The spatial and temporal dynamics of Chl-a were explained using an analysis of Empirical Orthogonal Function.The first EOF mode explains 76 % of the total variance which indicated the seasonal cycle with high variability along the coast and the mouth of Pahang River. The second EOF mode explains variability of the Southwest and the Northeast monsoon with 4.18 % of variance. The third EOF mode indicates about 2.08 % of total variance explaining more on the Northeast monsoon that shows the Chl-a distributed along-shelf direction. Mode 4 of Chl-a EOF explained the inter-monsoon period with 1.37 % of total variance showing high variability at the river mouth (positive signal) and along the coast (negative signal). Variability of Chl-a in this area was influenced by river outflow, wind forcing and terrestrial discharge.