A series of AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) satellite images and simultaneous ship transects in July 1992 were used to show that surface accumulations of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) in the southern Baltic Sea can cause local increases in the satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST) by up to 1.5 'C. The warmer SST is attributed to increased absorption of sunlight due to increased phytoplankton pigment concentration. The distribution of surface cyanobacterial accumulations detected as increased reflectance in the visible channel of the AVHRR satellite sensor was correlated with chlorophyll concentration at 5 m depth. Warm SST anomalies ('hot spots') appeared both in accumulations of surface-floating cyanobacteria and in areas of high chlorophyll concentration (detected by shipboard measurements). The 'hot spots' followed the detailed boundaries of the cyanobacterial plumes and probably represented a shallow, diurnally heated top layer that appeared by afternoon in conditions of low wind (2 m ss1) and weak mixing, disappeared during the night due to thermal convection and were hardly detectable on days with wind speed of 6 to 8 m S -l . The vertical extension of the top diurnally heated layer was probably less than 1 m and definitely less than 5 m, at which depth no temperature increase was detected. It is suggested that the day/night SST difference in low-wind conditions may be an indicator of near-surface phytoplankton pigment concentration.
In the 1980s and 1990s prior to 1995, massive blooms of the diazotrophic cyanobacterium Nodularia spumigena occurred in the Baltic Sea Proper but never extended into the central and eastern Gulf of Finland. The absence of nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria blooms in parts of the Baltic Sea with a high N:P ratio (e.g. Gulf of Finland) has been explained by their reduced competitive advantage in conditions of P limitation. Starting with the summer of 1995, massive blooms of N. spumigena occurred in the central and eastern Gulf of Finland, as detected by both satellite sensors and in situ monitoring. We propose that the eastward expansion of N. spumigena blooms was triggered by the 1993 saltwater inflow into the Baltic. With the arrival of the saline and oxygen-depleted waters in the Gulf of Finland in 1995, stratification in the bottom layers increased, oxygen concentrations decreased, and increased amounts of phosphate were released from the sediments. The subsequent decrease in the N:P ratio may have caused the reoccurring N. spumigena blooms.KEY WORDS: Cyanobacteria · Nodularia · Nutrients · Gulf of Finland · Baltic SeaResale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher
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