Hurricane Floyd’s Effect of Shelf Turbidity - related image preview

301 x 685
263 KB - JPEG

Hurricane Floyd’s Effect of Shelf Turbidity

The waters along the Florida/Georgia/Carolina coast in the April 1998 image appear deep blue except for an irregular narrow band along the coast which is colored yellowish-brown by suspended sediments and dissolved, colored organic materials (CDOM) that wash into the ocean from rivers and are resuspended by the action of the surf and currents in the shallow coastal waters. (The lighter blue water further southeast just under the clouds is the Gulf Stream. This water contains less phytoplankton biomass and CDOM than the water nearer shore and therefore scatters more blue light back to the spacecraft.)

In the September 16, 1999 image, the water all the way out to the edge of the continental shelf looks quite bright blue-green. As Hurricane Floyd passed over these waters, he stirred and mixed them much deeper than normal -- deep enough, in this case, to resuspend sediments that had settled on the continental shelf over the years. These resuspended sediments are what give the water its milky green color. A sense of the power of this hurricane is illustrated by realizing that the outer edge of the continental shelf in this area is about two-hundred meters deep.

At the shelf edge the water becomes rapidly deeper and bottom sediment can no longer be reached by the hurricane as you can see in this SeaWiFS image.


Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE

Published September 16, 1999
Data acquired April 12, 1998 - September 16, 1999

Source:
OrbView-2 > SeaWiFS
Topics:
Hydrosphere > Water Quality > Turbidity
Oceans > Coastal Processes > Sediment Transport
Oceans > Coastal Processes > Sedimentation
Oceans > Marine Sediments > Sediment Transport
Oceans > Marine Sediments > Sedimentation
Oceans > Ocean Optics > Turbidity
Collection:
Visible Earth