An Efficient Detection of Moroccan Coastal Upwelling Based on Fusion of Chlorophyll-a and Sea Surface Temperature Images With a New Validation Index

Abstract

This research deals with the problem of identifying and extracting effectively the main Moroccan upwelling front. The proposed methodology, based on the image-fusion concept, comes to benefit from the information available in both sea-surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll-a satellite images. Moreover, a new validation index is proposed by computing a simple gradient along the extracted upwelling limit. The developed procedure is applied over a database of 366 SST and 366 chlorophyll-a images from 2007 to 2014, covering the Moroccan Atlantic coast. The final results are validated qualitatively by an oceanographer and quantitatively by our innovative index. The findings of validation demonstrate the performance of our fusion approach.