Remote sensing of sea surface temperature and chlorophyll-<i>a</i>: implications for squid fisheries in the north-west Pacific Ocean

Abstract

Abstract The spatio-temporal relationship between sea surface features and squid catch rates in the north-west Pacific Ocean were studied. Thermal-colour features were extracted from long-term Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) (1995–2001) and Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) data (1997–2001). Productive squid fisheries coincided with locations having high sea surface temperature (SST) variability near Hokkaido. Maps of squid fishery migration and basin-wide sea colour fronts in the Kuroshio–Oyashio convergence region were compared. In the peak fishing season (July to August), the fisheries coincided with the steep sea colour gradients between 0.15 and 0.5 mg m−3. In the autumn season (September to October), the fishing ground migrated to the northern part of the sea colour fronts, locating along the 0.5 mg m−3 isoline, which marked the interface between cold and warm water enriched in food for squid. Acknowledgements The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and fellow colleagues for providing helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript. The authors also thank NOAA and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for providing AVHRR sea surface temperature and SEAWIFS chlorophyll data. This work was funded by the IGSNRR (Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research) and BMEC (Beijing Municipal Education Commission).