Long-term spatiotemporal variability of southwest Florida whiting events from MODIS observations

Spatiotemporal Mapping and Monitoring of Whiting in the Semi-Enclosed Gulf Using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Time Series Images and a Generic Ensemble Tree-Based Model

“…Whiting is a short-lived phenomenon of milky parcels of water or bright in-water features, which has been reported globally in lacustrine, marine and freshwater environments and in semi-enclosed areas [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The ephemeral patches in whiting are turbid water with high levels of suspended fine-grained calcium carbonate mineral particles [8][9][10][11]. Whiting events last from days to weeks and can be visualised via satellite images as extended milky-white water varying from a few meters to square kilometres long [1,12].…”

“…Although whiting has been studied for decades to determine valid explanations for its occurrences and causes, the event remains controversial [10]. Various assumptions have been made to explain the causes of whiting.…”

“…Remote sensing with ocean colour satellite instruments provides a set of high temporal-resolution data with various scales and records of satellite images and derivatives. This method enables the spatiotemporal mapping of whiting events; however, limited studies have adopted remote sensing technology to study these occurrences in marine environments [10]. The majority of the studies used satellite data to map whiting in the Bahama Banks [12,24], in the Ten Thousand Islands in southwest Florida [10,25], in the Great Lakes in North America [26] and in the Feldberg Lake District, Klocksin Lake Chain and Rheinsberg Lake regions in Germany [27].…”

“…This method enables the spatiotemporal mapping of whiting events; however, limited studies have adopted remote sensing technology to study these occurrences in marine environments [10]. The majority of the studies used satellite data to map whiting in the Bahama Banks [12,24], in the Ten Thousand Islands in southwest Florida [10,25], in the Great Lakes in North America [26] and in the Feldberg Lake District, Klocksin Lake Chain and Rheinsberg Lake regions in Germany [27]. Whiting events based on general properties are varyingly recognised with remote sensing data from visual identification and manual delineation [10,24,[28][29][30][31].…”

“…Considering the shallowness of the southwest Florida coast and the spectral similarity between whiting occurrences and bright shallow bottom sediments, Long et al [25] delineated whiting patches manually by relying on visual inspection and spatial contrast. Recently, Long et al [10] used contrast enhancement and floating algae index (FAI) images to differentiate in-water whiting features from clouds to map the spatiotemporal variability of the southwest Florida whiting events from 2003 to 2015. Other studies focused on detecting and estimating the concentration of particulate inorganic carbon (PIC), or calcium carbonate particles, in the surface layer of the water column from the water-leaving radiance and reflectance differences concept through the computation of chlorophyll-a concentration [32][33][34].…”