Relationship between Temperature Distributions and Outbreaks of Harmful Algal Blooms in Korean Waters

Abstract

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) of Cochlodinium polykrikoides frequently occur around the South Sea of Korea, causing. economic losses in coastal breeding grounds. HAB outbreak scale usually changes each year depending on physical, biological and environmental conditions. Relatively large-scale HABs occurred in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2003 with respect to spatial scale, duration and maximum density. Considering HAB scale and temperature distributions around the South Sea, we found that low coastal temperatures in August correspond to enormous HAB outbreaks. Cold waters created by coastal upwellings around the southeastern coast of Korea also corresponded to these outbreaks. Serial oceanographic investigations in August in the South Sea revealed that sea surface temperature anomalies had distinctively negative values when large-scale HAB outbreaks appeared. With regard to temperature differences between the surface and the 30-m layer, there was a tendency for large-scale outbreaks when temperature gradients around the seasonal thermocline weakened.